How to use L-Wiz.

Getting started

1. Open the terminal. No account is needed.
2. Press ` and type. A citation, a party or a few words. Results appear below the prompt as you type.
3. Choose with ↑ ↓ and press Enter. The judgment opens in its own window.
4. Or press ⇧ + Enter. Oracle opens with every result of the search.

Search commands

A command is a word that starts with /. It names a search mode, a court, a year, a year range or a topic or tag. Finish it with Space, Tab or Enter and it becomes a coloured block in the prompt. Everything else searches as written.

Two courts mean either court. Two years become the span that covers both. /PH and /PS cannot be combined; the first one you type applies.

Courts

Loading the court list…

Try these

• /UKSC /2023 negligenceSupreme Court judgments from 2023 that mention negligence.
• /TOPIC:tax-duty /TAG:vat input taxInput tax, within the Tax & Duty topic and the VAT tag.
• /PS GoogleJudgments with Google as a named party.
• /PH duty of careThe exact phrase, in order.

After each search, the address bar holds it as /terminal?q=…. Copy the address to bookmark or share the search.

Topics and tags

Every classified judgment has one topic, a broad area of law, and can have several tags, the specific legal subjects it deals with. A search can use one topic and any number of tags. Every tag you add must match.

Browse by name

Type /TOPIC or /TAG on its own, then a few letters to narrow the list. Choose one with ↑ ↓ and Enter. When a topic is active, related tags come first.

Type a slug

Each topic and tag also has a slug: a short, fixed name in lower case, with hyphens for spaces. Write it after a colon to apply that topic or tag directly.

/TOPIC:tax-duty

applies the topic Tax & Duty

/TAG:vat

applies the tag VAT

A slug must match exactly, and a topic slug only works after /TOPIC:. Anything else stays as ordinary search text. Choosing a new topic replaces the old one and keeps your tags. In a judgment, the topic and tag chips under the title run the same search.

Oracle and charts

Oracle holds the whole result set of a search in its own window. Sort it by relevance, newest, oldest or most cited, and see why each judgment matched.

Press V to chart the same results. The views are a heatmap of courts, a matrix of courts by year, topics and tags by court, and a timeline. Point at a court, year or cell to inspect it. Enter opens that slice as a new Oracle, and your original search stays as it was.

Windows and workspaces

Every judgment opens in its own window, and Oracle opens on the left half. Windows tile themselves as you open them. Move, snap and resize them with the keyboard or by dragging, and maximise one when you want to read.

Each workspace can show its judgments as Tiles or as Tabs in one window. Up to nine workspaces keep separate lines of research apart.

Reading

Judgments are rendered from the source XML, with their headings and numbered paragraphs intact. Some older judgments exist only as PDF text. These are shown as plain text, and the original PDF stays downloadable. Each reader links to the original on its source site.

A legislation window can open a stored version beside the current one, so you can compare them. This needs Tiles mode.

Notes and export

Select a passage in a judgment to highlight it and attach a note. Highlights come in four colours: yellow, green, blue and pink. Press N to open the notes beside the text. Clicking a highlight takes you to its note.

Export in the notes drawer downloads a Markdown file, named after the citation. It lists each quoted passage with your note under it.

# Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police

*[2018] UKSC 4*

1 annotation

---

> public authorities are generally subject to the same liabilities in tort as private individuals

Positive act, not omission: ordinary negligence principles apply.

Notes are stored in this browser only. Clearing your browser data removes them, so export anything you want to keep. Highlights are not available on plain-text judgments.

Demo access and daily limits

The public demo opens automatically, with no sign-up required. It includes 50 search sessions and 30 distinct cases per day. Closed beta access provides 1,000 search sessions and 1,000 distinct cases per day, using the same available case-law corpus.

How daily limits work

A search session covers one minute of typing, refining, sorting and paging through results. Reopening the same case does not use another case allowance. Daily allowances reset at midnight UTC. Shared network limits also apply, so access can be limited even when your individual allowance remains.

Access extended limits

Choose Login in the terminal, then Continue with email. On the secure sign-in page, enter your invited email address and use the one-time code sent to it. No password is needed. Your current search carries into the beta. For an invitation, contact us.

Keep your notes

Notes and highlights stay in your browser. Demo and beta notes are separate, so export your notes before moving between the two. Clearing browser data removes local notes. See Notes and export for the export steps.

Sources and limits

Judgments come from Find Case Law and legislation from legislation.gov.uk , both published by The National Archives. L-Wiz is independent of The National Archives.

The public terminal is a demo, and access to the full corpus is limited. Topics and tags are L-Wiz's own classification, not part of the source record.