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Civil Procedure: Keeping Current

This research guide is designed to provide research starting points for 1Ls doing civil procedure research at the Northeastern University School of Law.

Legal Newspapers

Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly: (also available on Westlaw)

  • Subscription required. Reports decisions issued by all the state and federal courts in Massachusetts including the Supreme Judicial Court, the Appeals Court, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as well as rulings from state and federal trial courts in Massachusetts and state agencies, changes to court rules, verdict & settlement reports, and bar-discipline notices.  The Archives goes back to 1993.

Also look at Continuing Legal Education materials, published by Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) (also available on Westlaw), Massachusetts Bar Association, and the Boston Bar Association.

Alert Services

Use ALERTS to keep up to date with developments in civil procedure through Westlaw and Lexis.

Get notifications via e-mail (or RSS feed, HTML, XML or portal) of new cases, new and pending legislation, docket changes, publications and news on your topic, as well as any changes to citing authorities affecting the law you've found.

Westlaw Next

  • WestClip - Get new documents that match your search criteria
  • KeyCite Alert - Receive updates and changes to citing authorities
  • Docket Alert - Find out when new cases are filed that meet your criteria (party, jurisdiction, case type, etc.)
  • Docket Track - Know about changes and additions to dockets
  • Publication Alert - Lean when new documents are added to a particular publication on Westlaw Next

      Get instructions here.

Lexis Advance

  • Search Alert - Find good results with a set of search terms? Set up an alert to monitor them for changes 
  • Shepard's Alert - Set alerts to monitor changes in analysis for Shepardized cases or statutes
  • Publication Alert - Have a publication (or group of publications) you like? Get alerts when new articles are added.
  • Topic Alert - Retrieve new and updated documents from a variety of content types on a particular topic
  • Compare Results Alert - Compare results of two searches, and set an alert for related new documents

      Get instructions here.