West introduced WestlawNext on February 8, 2010. The main advances are that a user can start a search without first selecting a database, and the search screen allows one to click checkboxes to select the jurisdiction and nature of material wanted. A new search algorithm, referred to as WestSearch, claimed to be the world's most advanced legal research engine, executes a federated search across multiple content types. Users can either enter descriptive terms or Boolean connectors and select a jurisdiction. Documents are ranked by relevance. WestlawNext also supports retrieving documents by citation, party name or KeyCite reference. An overview page enables users to see the top results per content type, or to view all results for a particular content type. Filters can also be applied to refine the result list even further. On the results page, users can also see links to related secondary sources relevant to their research. WestlawNext also provides folders for storing portions of the research selected by the user.
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