I’m creating this page to report updates and changes I’m making to our coding tools.

The coding tools now contain two new fields of variables: Tallies and Citations.

The Tallies variables are filled in automatically after the Judges and Outcome variables are coded.  We can override the default coding of these variables, however, as needed.  The primary situation human judgment is needed is coding the policy direction of separate opinions.

The Citations variables cover a suite of variables about the filing of the appeal, the authorities cited by the majority opinion, and the subsequent citation of the opinion in future cases.

To assist coding the Citations variables, and perhaps other variables, the split screen view (which includes the form for coding) now includes links directly to opinions on Westlaw as well as the Westlaw Keycite information.

If you encounter a problem or have a question, feel free to post a comment.