Text Search Help

General Information

Keyword Searching

• Individual words or phrases can be entered in to each of the keyword boxes. The words or phrases will be joined by any selected operator (found in the drop down box to the right of the keyword). If the operator is left blank, an operator of AND is assumed.

  Examples of keywords and phrases:

  • mandatory arbitration
  • expert witness*
  • discrim*

• Operators are AND, OR, AND NOT, NEAR.

• When entering phrases, quotes are not necessary. All words in one keyword box will be treated as a phrase.

• Do not use "noise" words in the search. Noise words such as A, THE, IS, etc. will be ignored.

• An * is considered a "wildcard" and can be used in any text search to allow for searching on the word root.
  For instance a search on crim* will return crime, criminal, crimes, etc.

• When searching for an RCW, a Citation, or a Court Rule, a period is allowed. The following are all acceptable searches:
  • RCW 34.05.518
  • RCW 9.94A*
  • 63 Wn.2d 17
  • CrR 7.2

• Avoid using punctionation, except asterisk (*) and period (.)

Narrowing the Search

All state and local court rules are included in the search by default.

However, by selecting the various options on the search screen, it is possible to restrict the search to just state rules, just local rules, or a selected court levels within either the state or local rules.

To exclude all Local Rules from the search, simply click the radio button labeled "Exclude all Local Rules from Search". Or if you would prefer to exclude just certain local courts, it is possible to Exclude all Superior Courts, or Exclude all District Courts, or Exclude all Municipal Courts. To do this, select "Narrow search by selected court levels", then from the drop down boxex, select the courts you would like to exclude.

You can also restrict the search to specified court levels by choosing the "Narrow search by selected court levels" and selecting just the court that should be included in the search. For instance if you want to search just Thurston County Superior Court Rules, then choose to "Exclude all State Court Rules", choose "Narrow search by selected rules", and from the drop down boxes, select Thurston County Superior from the first box, Exclude all District Court Rules from the second box, and Exclude all Municipal Court rules from the third box.

You can also restrict the search to just State Court Rules by selecting Exclude all Local Court Rules from the Search"

State rule searches can be further narrowed by selecting rules that fall within a selected court level, such as Appellate, or Superior.