Search Tips
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Basic searching
Searching for items on elexica is easy. Simply enter a word or phrase into the search box, click on "Search" (or hit the Enter key on your keyboard) and elexica will retrieve the items that match your query.
elexica search is not case sensitive.
The search engine ignores certain common words, including a, an, as, and, the and for.
If you search for common legal terms, for example law or judge, you will find that you will get a lot of search results. You should try to narrow down your search for example by specifying different search terms, using more complex searching, or using elexica's advanced search.
Advanced search
Use elexica's advanced search to refine your search based on elexica area (eg In Brief, In Depth, Newsletters etc) and/or applicable law and/or date. The different areas represent the different types of legal information available on elexica.
Search results
Results of searches are presented in order of relevance, with the most relevant match appearing first. Bear in mind that the amount of material you can see on elexica depends on your business relationship with Simmons & Simmons, based on the email address you gave us. Further information on access is available here.
More complex searching
Searching for one or more words
If you enter one or more words in the search box, elexica searches for items containing all of the words you have specified (ie comparable to using the Boolean operator AND).
To search for items containing either the word share or the word option or both words, search for share OR option (ie the elexica search engine recognises the Boolean operator OR).
If you are looking for items with an exact match to a phrase, put the phrase into quotation marks. For example, a search for "share option" will find items containing that exact phrase. You can use quotation marks to override the Boolean OR operator. For example, a search for "one or two" will return items containing the phrase one or two, rather than all items containing either the word one or the word two.
Excluding words
If you want to search for items that contain one word, but exclude items which contain another (ie do a search comparable to using the Boolean operator AND NOT) you can use a hyphen before the word that you want to exclude.
For example, a search for share-option will return a list of all items which contain the word share, but discount items which also include the word option.
Searching for hyphenated words
You need to bear in mind the way the 'excluding words' feature works when searching for hyphenated words. elexica's search will find items that feature hyphenated words if you search for an exact match to the words as a phrase, without the hyphen.
For example, pre-budget will produce zero hits. However, searching for "pre budget" will return items containing the phrases pre budget and pre-budget.
Extending words (fuzzy searching)
If you want to search for a word and others that start with the same word, you can precede the word with ~. This means that a search for ~tax will return items containing not only the word tax, but also taxes, taxing, taxi, taxman, etc.
Note that a search for a word in the singular will not return items containing the plural of that word. For example, a search for option will not return an item containing the word options.
Searching on a single page
You can use your web browser to find words or phrases on a particular web page. First, make sure you are on the page you want to search on and that it is "active" by clicking on it (making sure your pointer is over "white space" rather than a link) and clicking your mouse's left button.
To bring up your browser's search window for searching the web page:
- On your keyboard:
- If you are using PC, press the Control (Ctrl) and F keys on your keyboard at the same time.
- If you are using a Mac, press the Command and F keys on your keyboard at the same time.
- In your browser menu bar select the appropriate menu "path" for your browser:
- Internet Explorer: Edit > Find (on This Page).
- Firefox: Edit > Find in This Page
- Mozilla: Edit > Find in This Page.
- Netscape: Edit > Find in Page.
Type the word or phrase you want to find in the resultant search window and click on the Find Next button. You will notice a limited number of self-explanatory options are available as well, dependent on your browser.