Lexis
®
Search Commands
and Connectors
Common Legal Phrases
The Lexis service automatically recognizes many common legal
phrases, e.g., limited liability partnership, summary judgment, and
search and seizure. However, if you want to be sure any phrase you’re
searching is recognized, enclose it in quotation marks, i.e., ENTER:
“right to work.
When More Than One Connector is Used …
Lexis acts
on the connectors in this order:
• OR
• Proximity connectors (W/n, /p, near/n, etc. See next page.) from
the smallest to the largest number value
• AND (You can use & instead of AND, except in legal phrases.)
• AND NOT or BUT NOT
For example, you ENTER: bankrupt! /25 discharg!
AND student OR
college OR education! /5 loan.
First, Lexis creates a unit of student OR college OR education!. Next
Lexis joins loan with student OR college OR education! to create a
unit. Then bankrupt! /25 discharg! is joined to create a second unit.
Finally AND (or &) operates last, joining the two created units.
Lexis Automatically Interprets
Search Commands
Just enter your words and commands in the Lexis Search Box, e.g.,
ENTER: drone and commercial W/10 deliver!. Commands are not
case-sensitive, i.e., enter AND, And or and.
Broaden W/N Connectors
While a Lexis search ignores certain “noise words” added to your
search, it counts all words in results documents for the purpose
of determining proximity. So broaden your W/n connector. In
other words, consider W/10 instead of W/5. For W/p and W/s,
consider W/75 or W/25 respectively.
Let the Advanced Search Help You
For help selecting connectors, select the Advanced Search link
below the Search Box to access Advanced Search forms, which
provide fields that help you use the right connector.
The Lexis
®
service lets you use advanced search commands. If you’re comfortable using search
commands and connectors—! and * to truncate words and W/n, OR, AND,
&, etc., to connect search
words and phrases—you can use these special commands to develop Lexis searches. Here’s what
you need to know:
Here’s an overview of Lexis commands:
Command/Connector Overview
!
Child! 
nds child, children, childless, childish, etc. Used after word endings only. The word requires
a minimum of three characters for the wildcard to be applied. Find the word root plus an unlimited
number of additional characters.
Note: Lexis automatically finds common plural words, i.e., ending in s, es and ies.
*
When used as a sufx: Bank* is the same as Bank! The ! and * are equivalents. They will both replace
0 or more characters when used with a three-character or more word root. Search results for bank*
include bank, banks, banking, banker and bankruptcy.
?
Lars??
Bank???
The industry standard ? replaces one character. For example, Lars?? nds Larsen and
Larson. And Bank??? will nd bank, banked, banker and banking but not bankrupt or
bankruptcy.
OR
physician OR doctor
Lexis finds documents with either word or both words.
AND (or &)
bank* AND deregulat!
bank* & deregulat!
Lexis finds documents with BOTH words only. Words can be ANYWHERE
in the
same document, not necessarily close in context. When entering legal phrases that
contain AND, e.g., “cease and desist order,” use “and” because Lexis is reading the
phrase literally.
Proximity Connectors:
W/n or near/n disparate W/10 impact or disparate near/10 impact or disparate +10 impact
(Use a number with W/n or near/n)
PRE/n or ONEAR/n
+n, +s, +p
cable PRE/1 tv OR television or cable ONEAR/1 tv OR television
(The rst word must precede the second within a specic number of words.)
W/p or /p
W/s or /s
W/seg or /seg
Converts to W/75
Converts to W/25
Converts to W/100
NOT W/n or NOT /n disparate NOT W/10 impact nds documents where disparate is not within 10 words of
impact. (Use a number with NOT W/n.)
AND NOT or %
or BUT NOT
rico AND NOT puerto or rico % puerto or
rico BUT NOT puerto
Lexis finds documents with “rico.” Documents with any mention of “puerto”
anywhere in the document—will not be retrieved.
Get more tips for using Lexis
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Command/Connector Overview
Special Commands:
ATLEASTn
You must use a number and search words in parentheses with ATLEASTn.
ENTER: atleast5(obama AND putin AND oil) and a Lexis search will find documents with at
least five mentions of each search word. Y
ou can use the OR and AND connectors with
ATLEASTn. You cannot use proximity connectors like W/n with ATLEASTn.
ALLCAPS
allcaps(AIDS)
You must use search words in parentheses with ALLCAPS.
ENTER: allcaps(AIDS) and your Lexis search will find news documents with references to
AIDS” the acronym and ACQUIRED IMMUNODEFICIENCY SYNDROME but not “aids”
the verb.
NOTE: The ALLCAPS command works with news content searches only.
NOCAPS
nocaps(aids)
You must use search words in parentheses with NOCAPS.
ENTER: nocaps(aids) and your Lexis search will find news documents with
references to “aids” the verb but not AIDS” the acronym.
NOTE: The NOCAPS command works with news content searches only.
CAPS
caps(Rico)
CAPS nds words with initial caps, e.g., proper nouns.
You must use search words in parentheses with CAPS.
ENTER: caps(Rico) and your Lexis search will find news documents with references to
“Puerto Rico” but not references to the “RICO Act.
NOTE: The CAPS command works with news content searches only.