LexisNexis Inmate Law Library Tip of the Month: #Atleast Command Prompt

LexisNexis Inmate Law Library Tip of the Month

The LexisNexis Inmate Law Library Tip of the Month is a practical series for correctional facility administrators who are committed to improving legal access and research outcomes in their facilities.

Each month, we will spotlight a feature, tool or best practice that helps your team get more value out of the LexisNexis platform—while making the experience more efficient for the incarcerated individuals you support.

Whether your focus is compliance, education, reentry preparation or simply ensuring uninterrupted access to legal materials, this series is designed with you in mind.

This Month’s Tip: #atleast Command Prompt

One of the biggest challenges in legal research is narrowing down a large list of results to find the materials most relevant to your issue.

When you’re researching broad topics, it’s easy to get buried in documents that only mention your search term in passing. The “atleast#” command can help you quickly cut through the noise and focus on the sources that matter most.

What Is the “atleast#” Command?

The “atleast#” command tells LexisNexis to only return documents where your term or phrase appears at least the number of times you specify.

For example, searching for atleast5(terry stop) will bring back only documents where the phrase “terry stop” appears five or more times—giving you a list of sources that discuss your topic in greater detail, not just in passing.

You can adjust the number to fit your needs. And if you want to make sure LexisNexis looks for an exact phrase instead of variations on the individual words, put quotation marks around it: atleast5("terry stop").

How to Use It

1. Choose a source and create your search in the red search box

• Type: atleast5(terry stop)
• You can replace the # above with any number you want to require the term/phrase to be mentioned in your results
• If you want to ensure you are only pulling the exact phrase Terry Stop and not variations of all of the terms in parentheses, put “ “ around the phrase, i.e.: “terry stop”

2. From the Search All Tab type in your search

• Type: atleast5(terry stop)
• This is pulling all documents across all of your content in your library that include your term/phrase at least 5 times

3. Use “atleast#” to filter your results

• From a list of results, type atleast5(terry stop) in the Search Within Results filter on the left of the screen

Why It Works

The “atleast#” command is especially helpful when you:

• Have too many results and want to focus on substantive discussions of your topic.
• Need to make sure your search term is a central focus of the document.
• Are working with broad or common legal concepts that appear frequently in unrelated contexts.

Watch It in Action