Advanced users, especially attorneys familiar with headnotes and Key Numbers from years of experience working with print digests and case law, are more likely to combine the Key Number System with full-text searching to maximize their online advantage. Considering the complexity of the system, it is not an easy prospect even for them. Still, they use it because working with topics and Key Numbers encourages them to identify the broad concepts behind their legal research, expanding on the terms directly relevant to their specific circumstance. Also, using the Key Number system minimizes the number of off-topic results. When a topic or Key Number is used in a case, it definitely deals in some significant part with the correct concept, rather than simply mentioning the term as is often the case with a full-text search.
Advanced users can then further refine their results by adding in additional terms.
So, yes, power users still think the system is useful, but we all agreed that it was intimidating to attorneys who were unfamiliar with the West print products. To understand why KeySearch is important, it helps to see it against the background of Search Advisor and the Key Number System. Key Numbers are only applicable to materials annotated by the West editors. Search Advisor is more current. Yet Lexis, like West, uses an editorial team to create, modify and cross-reference topic information so the system is not without the guiding hand of expert human researchers.