A browser extension to add the features Westlaw and Lexis forgot.
Bestlaw adds features to Westlaw and Lexis to make legal research faster and easier. It has enhanced more than six million documents. It's used at top law schools, firms, nonprofits, and courts.
When you read a document—like a case, statute, or law review article—Bestlaw adds a toolbar with these features:
- Copy a perfect Bluebook citation with one click
- Read documents in a clean, readable view with beautiful typography
- Prevent getting automatically signed off
- Highlight dissenting and concurring opinions so you know what you're reading
- Collapse and expand statutory sections
- Automatically generate a clickable table of contents for any document
- One-click copying for citations, titles, docket numbers, and full text
- Highlight hard-to-see page numbers
- Jump between footnotes and the main text without losing your place
- Instantly look up information about a case on Wikipedia and other sources
- Share the document by email or on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+
Read more at http://www.bestlaw.io/
Most of Bestlaw's features are free. A few tools are part of Bestlaw Pro, which costs $5/month and includes:
- Automatic Bluebook citations
- Free secondary sources: get free access to journal articles and other materials.
- Free PDF downloads: save cases offline without getting charged.
- Free printing: never pay for printing cases.
To sign up for Bestlaw Pro, install Bestlaw, open a document on Westlaw or Lexis, and then click the "Pro" tab.
NEW IN v0.1.5.4:
- Fix Bluebooking bugs
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BY INSTALLING BESTLAW, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF SERVICE, AVAILABLE AT https://s3.amazonaws.com/bestlaw/docs/terms-of-service.html
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Westlaw and WestlawNext are registered trademarks of West Publishing Corporation. Bestlaw is not affiliated with West, Westlaw, or WestlawNext.
Latest reviews
- (2022-02-16) Jordan Glassman: Does not appear to have been updated for latest versions of Westlaw or Lexis. Non-functional as far as I can tell, unless I'm missing something.
- (2021-07-10) Culper Sr.: If you decide to try and subscribe they will NOT cancel your sub. You need to go through your bank to stop getting charged.
- (2019-09-10) Liam Harrell: Good app, so I buy a subscription. Stop using it, because it isn't worth $5 a month. Only method to cancel is by emailing them. After two months, no reply, still charging my card. Now I need to take up the matter with a bank. DO NOT GIVE THESE PEOPLE YOUR CREDIT CARD! THEY WON"T CANCEL WHEN YOU ASK!
- (2018-02-10) Katie Kocher: was excited to check this extension out. turned out to be a real bummer. no useful features on the free version. don't waste your time.
- (2017-01-31) Mark Davis: The overview doesn't say this (as of 1/31/2017 it says the opposite), but the bluebook citation feature is actually behind a paywall, leaving the free version with no useful features. I didn't spend a lot of time with it, though.
- (2016-10-25) Alex Landback: Wanted this for refreshing WL which always timed out if I was doing something else. It worked at first, but it seems the refresh feature is no longer functioning. Uninstalled and reinstalled, still timing out. No way to tell if this has been overridden by WL scripts. Wish could opt out of the Bestlaw popups and integrated features that are subscription only.
- (2016-06-14) Daniel F. Thornton: Awesome features, even in the free version! One star off due to some gaps in functionality. *** Great Features *** Replicates Westlaw's reading view, and provides a similar feature in Lexis, which LexisAdvance lacks. Another great feature is the "prevent logout" feature, which sets a javascript timer to auto-reload your legal research page, which on Westlaw prevents auto-logout and having to input a client ID to resume one's session. *** Gaps in Functionality *** Some of these featueres, and the Bestlaw toolbar itself, only appear when one is viewing a specific legal source (case, statute, &c), and not when browsing source lists or tables of contents; I took off one star for this. Many features are paywalled, and the subscription price is a little steep for some of these. No stars removed for this; I just wish there was another non-subscription price point.
- (2016-04-26) Jacob G: Thank you!
- (2015-02-20) Nathan Collins: Very useful, especially for checking Bluebook cites and linking to free resources.
- (2015-02-13) Priya Chadha: Super helpful just for the Bluebook feature and highlighting page numbers. I also really appreciate how quickly the creator responded to an email about a bug that I sent. Looking forward to when Bluebooking is added for state cases.
- (2014-10-29) Malcolm Kim: Incredibly useful. And I really appreciate that the creator is open to feedback. 11/10.
- (2014-09-25) Elliot Woods: Wow! I've been using Westlaw for years. But now I can't believe I made it that long without an app like this! This app makes my work in Westlaw 10x more productive. At least! THANKS BESTLAW!!!
- (2014-09-25) Alex Hughes: This a nifty little extension that will make navigating and citing legal research so much easier for me!
- (2014-09-25) Awesome extension. Can't believe some of these things aren't standard in WestlawNext.
- (2014-09-25) Justin Constant: Great extension. It's amazing that westlaw hasn't added these features yet.
- (2014-09-25) As soon as bluebook cite for cases other than federal is added, this will be perfect. Still an amazing app as it is.