Meet VitalLaw: The New Digital Platform That Will Change The Way You Do Legal Research [Sponsored]

Wolters Kluwer is no stranger to the legal research game. For many lawyers, they’ve long been the go-to source for the legal content and insights you need to win your cases and better serve your clients. Now, though, they’re taking legal research to the next level.

Wolters Kluwer recently announced that its award-winning research platform Cheetah has been rebranded as VitalLaw – a truly native digital approach that goes beyond just legal research to create streamlined workflows that allow lawyers to better gain insights and develop expertise. With VitalLaw, you can now access more than 40% more primary source content, as well as interactive dashboards, all federal and state laws, intelligent tools that allow for more efficient workflows, and so much more.

VitalLaw isn’t just about providing top-notch legal content (which it certainly does). It’s also about engaging with your research platform differently so you can better solve the legal problems you and your clients face every day. In contrast with the way you’ve probably interacted with research platforms in the past, VitalLaw truly allows users to develop deep expertise and effective workflows within specific areas of the law.

If you think a legal research platform can’t help you work better and smarter, think again.

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The Vital Law Platform

Your VitalLaw experience starts with your main VitalLaw dashboard.

Here you’ll see the 38 practice areas for which VitalLaw offers in-depth coverage. For many VitalLaw users, the experience starts by simply typing a term into the search bar. What you’ll see first are suggestions for some of the most relevant search terms that users look for, some key titles that relate to the topic you’re searching for, and some quick answers. With the quick questions and answers, you can hover over a question that interests you and see the answer without having to click on it and be taken to another screen.

If you want deeper analysis, you can click into any of the search results, sources, or answers to start a deep dive into VitalLaw’s content.

Your VitalLaw experience is tailored to your particular subscription – in other words, if you only subscribe to a specific area like Labor and Employment, you’ll only see search results that are relevant to that practice area, making it easier to quickly get at the answers you need. The more practice areas you subscribe to, the larger your search results will be, and that’s where VitalLaw’s post-search filters come into play.

Once you’ve retrieved your search results, you can choose from a variety of filters, including practice areas, jurisdiction, content type, and more to narrow it down to the most useful documents. The filters make it incredibly easy to get at the individual documents that will be most meaningful to you and your clients.

When you click into a document, you have the ability to print it, email it, download it, or grab a link to it, which you can then embed on a practice area page within your firm’s intranet or wherever else it will be most useful to access it in the future without having to repeat your research.

In total, VitalLaw gives you access to over 13 million primary source documents, including comprehensive laws and regulations, current awareness, case law, administrative decisions, rules, treatises, and more. If there’s a type of primary source material you rely on in your legal practice, you can likely find it on VitalLaw.

VitalLaw also employs a team of over 100 attorney editors who are experts in a particular area of law and create analytical content on a daily basis. From summaries of current developments to deeper analysis and explanations, these materials give a valuable overview of some of the most important issues lawyers encounter every day.

Another critical feature of VitalLaw is the new Laws & Regulations Dashboard, which provides the most consistent and up-to-date compilation of laws and regulations in key practice areas.

For any issue or question you have that relates to a law or regulation, you’ll be able to get your answer in this dashboard. The Laws & Regulations Dashboard includes the United States Code, all federal regulations, and all state statutes and regulations, and presents them in a way that allows for more efficient and effective workflows. You can search across all laws and regulations or browse titles.

Every result has a clear and concise breadcrumb trail that allows you to easily get back to the overarching law or regulation. It also includes legislative history, as well as listing future effective dates, making it easy to stay on top of how the laws will be changing and how that may impact your clients.

Customizable Dashboards: So Much More Than Just Research

Every lawyer has their own way of working, and VitalLaw accommodates that. Say, again, that you’ve subscribed to Labor & Employment law. You can customize your own practice area dashboard that includes not only your legal resources, but also a number of incredibly useful tools that will help you work more efficiently. When you set your dashboard, that’s how it will look every time you come back to VitalLaw, meaning you don’t have to waste time finding the sources and tools you use most often.

What really sets VitalLaw apart from other research platforms are the incredibly useful workflow tools they offer. The first of these is Smart Charts, which are created by VitalLaw’s expert attorneys. These multi-jurisdictional and topic-oriented Smart Charts compile a variety of subtopics in a particular area and provide brief summaries of specific laws or regulations within particular jurisdictions, so you can see exactly how states and the federal government are handling specific issues. Each Smart Chart entry links to the relevant supporting primary source content, allowing you to quickly access the most important documents.

In all, there are over 600 Smart Charts available in VitalLaw. They can be emailed to clients or colleagues and exported into Excel, where you can add your own notes and annotations.

Another incredibly useful tool in VitalLaw is Smart Tasks. This feature is designed to provide step-by-step guidance on a particular task.

Smart Tasks walks you through the different tasks that are necessary for a particular activity or area of law. For example, if you need to defend a Department of Labor or ICE worker visa audit, Smart Tasks will walk you through every step of what’s required in order to be successful doing that. Whether you’re a junior associate who’s new to a practice area or a seasoned attorney who wants to make sure nothing is missed, Smart Tasks are a game-changer for making sure your work is streamlined and accurate for your clients.

For many lawyers, practical content can be even more valuable than black letter law to understanding how to best represent clients. For that reason, VitalLaw has created a practical content dashboard that collects all the valuable analysis and guidance in one place, eliminating the need to waste time trying to find it every time a new question arises. Of the over 13 million documents in VitalLaw, there are about 24,000 pieces of practical law, including helpful decision trees and current awareness to keep you up to date and on the right path.

You can also set up customizable alerts that deliver any new content that meets your parameters of interest on a daily basis. Simply put, you have the power to make VitalLaw work the way you work, giving you the information you most need exactly when you need it.

Get to Know VitalLaw

If you want to learn what VitalLaw is all about before you commit to a subscription, you’re in luck. Wolters Kluwer has released VitalLaw Public, a universe of information that exists outside of the VitalLaw paywall and can be accessed by subscribers and non-subscribers alike.

On VitalLaw Public, you’ll see top stories for the majority of VitalLaw’s practice areas, which include accessible links to any referenced primary source materials. You also get three complementary views of “locked” VitalLaw content every month. Also included in VitalLaw Public is any current awareness content that’s 30 days old or older.

Whether you’re researching a legal question or trying to understand how to comply with any state or federal law, VitalLaw has answers for you. On top of that, VitalLaw helps you build workflow expertise in deep areas of the law by offering capabilities and functionality that you won’t find in other legal research platforms.

VitalLaw is where you want to go to find deep analysis around a variety of different practice areas, along with workflow tools that are created by attorneys for attorneys, so you can deliver better outcomes for your firm and your clients.

Topics

Legal Research, Sponsored Content, Technology, VitalLaw™, Wolters Kluwer, Wolters Kluwer Custom