The judges decide which opinions to publish. Unpublished appellate court opinions may be found on subscription databases and sometimes on the Internet. Published opinions are usually issued in chronological order. As a result, other sources must be used to locate cases by topic.
Digests provide subject access to all r eported cases.
A digest is both a subject index and a topical outline of American law. Brief case summaries are provided, and at the end of each summary is a citation to the full judicial opinion. Most digests are published by West Group, which has classified the entire body of American law into approximately 400 topics. The same topic and key number can be used for research throughout the West di gest system. In each digest, the topics are arranged alphabetically.