Westlaw App Reviews

Makes you log in again after like 2 minutes of being out of the app. Doesn't have any hyperlinks to useful headnotes. Needs serious work. Barely useable as is

Would give zero if I could. While scrolling through a case or clicking on headnote number, some domain name seller takes over the screen.

This app. Inconveniently arranged. It did not work properly for me. Allowed me no research. Or any info. Whatsoever. After attempting to explore and compare different Histories nothing worked when pressed. Giving this app one star is generous.

While reading a case, when I click a link to another case or a statute and then click the back arrow to return to the original case, the original case reloads at the top instead of remembering the page I was on when I clicked the link. This makes the app virtually unusable for me.

The user interface of the mobile app is too dissimilar from its desktop site's user interface to be readily useable. The only way to find information from any source is too perform a keyword search.

I told them months ago that cases from some databases will not open. They have not fixed it. The app is useless if the cases will not open. Maybe Lexis could give us a better deal.

4 years ago I wrote a review complaining that the highlight function was not working. Now, however, highlighting seems to be eliminated altogether. What gives? I want this function. Also, for the huge amount of money I pay for "Related Documents," I expect them to come up in the app. But, no, I can't access them. Big disappointment. That means I can only use the app for light research - and not to access everything I pay for. Disappointing. Third, I'd like to change the screen that welcomes me when I open the app. The "alerts" screen is pointless to me. I'd rather see favorite resources, like on the web interface dashboard, or anything else. Overall, having the platform on my phone is awesome. If I wake up in the middle of the night lying in bed, if I'm in the hallway at the courthouse, or if I'm a passenger in a car, I don't have access to a full computer and I like the ability to research on my phone. But, for the money I pay a month, I expect premium service from an app like this and I have high standards. Westlaw is supposed to be the Ritz Carlton of legal research. If I wanted less capability, I'd go with Fast Case. Hence the 3-star review. Hope someone who can make changes reads this.

Your E-Trascript app no longer functions in iOS 11. Please update it immediately. Many of us rely on this app for reading depositions carefully in motion practice.

1. The default and unchangeable homepage is the alerts page, which is nearly pointless. 2. There is no list of resources to browse unless you first search and filter. 3. Perhaps most disappointing: You cannot page forward to the next statute, rule, or section, and you the documents contain no hyperlinked tables of contents. This makes looking at documents within the same source a pain. It is 2016. Top quality legal research tools are expensive. This app does not save time and maximize resources. Please do better.

I never write reviews for apps. But I felt quite compelled to write one for this app. It's terrible. It took me 10 seconds using it to realize it will do me absolutely no good. I was hoping for a dumbed down, streamlined Westlaw Next I could use in court. What I got was a sad, obligatory app release to appear like Westlaw is competing with Lexis by having an app. Check out the Lexis app to know what a good, usable app looks like. This is not it. One example of this app's fail-ness: the headnotes are now footnotes. You must click their links from the text to read what you just read. That's not why headnotes exist, obviously. Another example: no way to see cases that cite the document you are looking at, at least no way I could easily find. I use that feature all the time, especially for making sure the attorneys are correctly construing statutes. It would be nice to be able to do that quickly in court like the Lexis app allows. Not with this app. TLDR: it's terrible.

I’m only new to law, I’m a paralegal student. The app has been of great help when brainstorming when I’m out and about, with an assignment on my mind, and unable to access my computer. However, one feature that’d be nice to have at hand would be the ability to narrow down searches in cited cases to statutes and such, such as “word/term search” and “reported or unreported”; the app seems a little cramped to add something like that, but perhaps on the left there could be a tab that one could click that’d open up upon the screen with those search elements, then one could hit “search” on the bottom and it’d narrow it down. Just a suggestion, but I must say this app gets it done in a pinch. Thank you

App doesn't work at all on an iPad. Cannot get past screen resolution page, and only get error message for mobile version. Worthless.

I will filter for jurisdiction and the app will simply forget the filter in future searches. The app is less intuitive than the website when the opposite should be true if it was designed well. Westlaw is an extremely expensive program for the technology backing it to be so lousy.

This used to be a great app. Fantastic! But recently, the secondary sources no longer work. More specifically, you cannot get into the Table of Contents for AmJur or CJS. Also, the Table of Contents for Tiffany on Real Property is not fully displayed on the iPad. I have also had trouble with the Restatements. I have told Westlaw about this, and nothing happens. Maybe if this review is published, Westlaw will get to work on this. I used to use this app all the time. Now, I just use Westlaw Next instead of the app. Too bad. Is anyone at Westlaw listening?

Couldn’t perform searches or download documents. Worthless.

I only want to look at cases, but when I select the cases from my search results, it stops letting me scroll. Completely useless for research if your top result isn’t what you’re looking for.

I bought a new iPad. When I downloaded the app it would not allow me sign in, making it useless. I have tried deleting and re-downloading, nothing. This is really disappointing because the app worked great for years.

Really? Can't browse the code or secondary sources --- doesn't even include criminal law as a practice area. They went from good with the Westlaw Next app to terrible with this.

This was a good, not great, app, but now I can't even log on, because the keyboard does not pop up to let me enter my user name and password. Please fix this!

Not user friendly at all. Filters are awful and you can't just take a step back from where you are in research, just all the way back. Whoever tested this has clearly never done any legal research if this is what passes for a good product.

The Westlaw App is a must for legal researchers and practicing lawyers. With ease of use and simplicity the application provides the most comprehensive legal research tool available.

The app is not optimized for use on newer iPads. There is no support for multitasking features such as Split View, and the UI isn’t even correctly sized for the larger iPad Pros.

The app is great for pulling up cases, however it could be better for law enforcement if certain others areas could also be utilized such as public records searches in the app.

It appears that they have given up on the development of this app and the website. Not sure what happened.

This app needs to be updated to support the new iPad Pro screen resolution and enable functionality for the Apple Pencil.

This app was usable when I needed to quickly reference something. It hasn’t been great for research at any point, but at least it was readable. Now, after the latest round of updates following iOS 11.1.1, the graphics and text are all way to big. Either this app doesn’t support dynamic text, or the developers adapted it for iPhone X, and didn’t care about the users with other versions of iPhones. Please fix this. Your app looks terrible. *UPDATE* The graphics issue was resolved in a recent update. Thank you.

Honestly, the first product that I can call utterly perfect. Thank you.

It is much easier to use the app than the website, and finding the information is the same.

App is about as good as mobile web but not usable for real research. Search is clogged with out of plan junk. Browsing code is limited to what fits on screen no scrolling available. How many years hasn't been since mobile technology became popular? Yet Westlaw doesn't really support mobile! Really? Wake up to the new era of mobility, that isn't that new.

I’d like to thank you for making this fully-functional mobile app. The internet at work barely functions and I won’t stand for waiting to draft because I can’t do my research

Perpetually "preparing [my] session" but never fully loads. Bug fix, please?!

The previous version was better. If I'm using this app it's because I need to search for something ... right now!

Westlaw should read these reviews and make this application useful. As it stands right now, it's useless. There is no split screen mode which permits using it with Microsoft word, cannot view table of contents for secondary sources and it is extremely limited. One would think that with Westlaw charging exorbitant fees and saving costs by outsourcing all of its tech support jobs to the Philippines that it would make such an important application useful. Time to switch to lexis advance.

Missing basic features of the web site, like jumping to next instance of found term. Everything looks enormous on iPad Pro 12 inch. Everything about this app screams “I don’t care.”

These updates would be quite useful. Need a resolution update for new iPad Pros screen size. Still a crippled version of the website.

I am continually amazed at how complicated the legal search process continues to be with this very costly product. Why do I need dog bite or med mal cases when I search for content specific to other areas of the law. With so much free (or nearly free) content on the internet, you would think that this company would improve their search function, look for ways to decrease frustration, and generally improve their product. And, why force an update on a customer while traveling, thereby defeating the saved passwords for the program. Moronic. Will be shopping this product again at renewal time.

Wow. I thought westlaw had finally recognized that advances in mobile technology demanded that they make their service accessible from mobile devices for all of their users, not only the ones willing to shell out additional fees to access the "next" app. As it ends up, they just ended up making research through their app as unwieldy and counterintuitive as trying to use westlaw through an internet browser on a mobile device. As some have observed, the app implements a new landing screen for "alerts" instead of taking you to the search page, which is annoying. Even more annoying, however is the actual navigation once you find what you are looking for. For example, I pulled up a statute and needed to look at the decisions applying said statute. There were 75 of them. When i clicked through to look at the decisions, the first 5 and part of the 6th listing showed up on the screen. When i reached the bottom of the screen, I attempted to scroll down, but could not. I hit the link at the top of the page for "view all" which simply reloaded the page I was already looking at. Completely and utterly worthless - I ended up having to pull the statute up on a desktop computer just to be able to see the other 69 decisions applying the law in question. This is BASIC FUNCTIONALITY, and not the sort of thing that I would expect westlaw to overlook. The most recent update was half-baked at best when it was released. Really, really disappointing all around.

Requires me to "re-authenticate" if I leave the app for more than a minute. Then I lose whatever I was reading. Not very conducive to research on-the-go.

Terrible design and limited functionality. This is supposed to be a sophisticated research instrument, not a legal news app. Cannot do important basic things -- starting with browsing content. Just source the website onto the app with full functionality.

Until the most recent update, my only complaint about the app was that I could not add highlighting or notes to cases in the app. Not a big problem. For all other purposes, it was excellent. But with the recent update, the text is unreadably, comically, preposterously large. It’s *almost unusable*. What gives?

I can’t even get past the first screen because there is a bug that prevents the key board from popping up. Therefore I can not enter my credentials to access the app. One pass (which I don’t have) works but not traditional user name and password.

I have really wanted to like this app since they introduced it. But they seem to put so little effort into enhancing it, and when they do revise it, it takes a step backwards. This new idea that one has to go first to an "alerts" page is ridiculous -- since the range of alerts they offer is so narrow that most users won't find any applicable. And why can't they optimize the app for the iPad Pro? And why does Related Documents not appear in the app -- I'm paying for the feature. Overall, a big, big fail. Makes me want to move to Lexis. When I tried for to post this feedback using the feedback feature in the app, I got error messages. Sums it up.

Highlight function not working.

Great idea but poorly executed. This app is so low-tech and clunky it will have you run back to your browser. Why can’t Westlaw create a fully integrated app with all the same functions and ease of navigation as the desktop version?

Like another user, I bought a new iPad and downloaded the app. It won’t let me enter my user name or password. This used to be a great app, but I can’t even use it!

Has some nice mobile specific improvements over the website, but badly needs multitasking and iPad Pro support. Come on Westlaw, these are critical features.

My biggest complaint is that the app does not support notations—so if you are doing research on your phone you cannot add notes or highlight text. Would love to see this resolved in the future.