Skip to main content

Shepardize

To check a citation against later case history to confirm it is still good law.

To "Shepardize" a case is to look up its later citation history to determine whether the case has been overruled, distinguished, criticized, or affirmed by later courts. The term comes from Shepard's Citations, LexisNexis's citation service.

The Westlaw equivalent is KeyCite. The free public equivalent is checking the case in CourtListener and reading the citing-references list. Every legal brief should Shepardize every cited authority before filing.

Related terms

We use essential cookies to keep you signed in and privacy-friendly, cookieless analytics to improve Draftiro. No third-party advertising trackers.