This is the fourth post of a four-part series spotlighting: Privacy and Security Law Report
In this final post of the series we are going to explore the left sidebar of the Privacy and Security Law Report homepage. This sidebar gives the user a multitude of ways to find the information they are looking for including allowing them to browse by law firm, court, agency, country, state, industry, federal statute, and international organization.
At the top of the section highlighted in red, there is the law firm search feature which allows the user to find any mention of a particular law firm in the articles published within the database. This includes quotes and comments made by individuals associated with, and articles written by members of, the law firm.
The user is given the option of clicking the link to one of the listed law firms or clicking on the “All Law Firms” link which will bring up the law firm index. When the user clicks on the “All Law Firms” link, they are brought to the index page. At the top of the page the user is given an A-Z list which allows them to arrive directly at that section of the page. Once there, the user is able to click on the expand button, on the left of the law firm name, to see all of the database articles that mention the firm in some way. For instance, if the user were looking for the firm of Patterson Belknap, they would click on the P in the A-Z list at the top of the page, which would take them to the P section of the index. At that point, the user would click on the plus sign to the left side of the Patterson Belknap listing. This expands that subtitle and provides the user with all of the database articles mentioning Patterson Belknap.
If the user is interested in looking up information having to do with a specific court, they can do that as well. By clicking on the “Courts” link, the user is taken to an index page that is almost identical to the law firm index. This index does not have an A-Z list at the top of the page though. Similar to the previous index, the user only has to choose a particular court they would like to research and, by clicking on the plus sign next to that court’s heading, the user will be presented with all of the information in that index’s database concerning that individual court.
The “Agencies” feature works the same way. The user is taken to the same index page layout, but is presented with information concerning the various U.S. governmental agencies instead. As before, clicking on the plus sign next to the specific agency heading will bring up a list of articles concerning that agency.
The country, state, industry, federal statute, and international organization search features work the same way as well. They all allow the user an easier way of exploring topics based on type. By searching in this way, users do not need to have a specific case or even sub-topic of privacy and security law in mind. Instead, users can explore a topic which may help them to define an issue within a particular topic that they would like to research.
The Reporter 