By Katie Carter
Oxford readers are no doubt familiar with subscription database Justcite, sister site to Justis, as a citator tool – ie. it tells you where a case was reported; whether it has been subsequently applied, followed, distinguished or overruled; what cases and legislation were cited by your original case; and links through to the full text. Particularly for those of you who enjoy thinking about these things graphically, the Justcite precedent map also allows you to see all these case connections at a glance, and to link through to related cases quickly and easily.
Justcite precedent map
And now we have another new feature to focus our analysis: Citations in Context. When you click on the menu option for subsequent cases you will see your usual list of cases organised by treatment – but the eagle-eyed among you will notice some small speech bubbles.
Citations in Context
You’ll notice they also mark the number of paragraphs which refer to your original case, so you can get some idea of whether it was relatively unimportant or the main topic of discussion. When you click on one of these speech bubbles it will expand the view to show the relevant excerpt from the citing case.
Citations in Context expanded
You can read the paragraph(s) that actually refers to your case, see whether it discusses the point of law in which you are interested, and form your own opinion of the judgment if necessary. No more wondering whether the case is on topic, and ploughing your way through an entire transcript to find what the judge actually said!
