page_title: West American Digest System
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: West American Digest System / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Volumes of the American Digest (Decennial Digest) at the law library of the UC Berkeley School of Law. Photographed by user Coolcaesar on February 13, 2009.
context_page_description: The West American Digest System is a system of identifying points of law from reported cases and organizing them by topic and key number. The system was developed by West Publishing to organize the entire body of American law. This extensive taxonomy makes the process of doing case law legal research less time consuming as it directs the researcher to cases that are similar to the legal issue under consideration.
context_section_description: The problem of finding cases on a particular topic was a large problem for the rapidly growing American legal system of the 19th century. John B. West, the founder of West Publishing, described this problem in his article A multiplicity of reports.  To solve the problem, he developed a system with two major parts.  First, his company began to regularly publish cases from many American jurisdictions in bound volumes called reporters (the West National Reporter System now covers all state and federal appellate courts, as well as certain trial courts). Second, he put together a classification system in which he divided the law into major categories which he called topics (such as "Contracts").  He then created hundreds of subcategories.  To save space in printing, these were given a number called a key number.  He then applied this "topic and key number" system to the cases he published. The key number is identified in the books with a key number and a key symbol graphic.
caption: Early volumes of the American Digest
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3072", "Image ImageLength": "2304", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "C70Z,C7000Z", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2020:07:26 23:36:18", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 20, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Image ExifOffset": "608", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1386", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6020", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Shutter Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:02:13 22:13:50", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:02:13 22:13:50", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1120723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired", "EXIF FocalLength": "79/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3039", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1863", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1260", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Hard", "EXIF Saturation": "Hard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard"}