8 Quick Tips to Avoid Too Many Search Results 

Your ICLE Partnership subscription opens the door to hundreds of thousands of pages of insights, guidance, overview, critical thinking and more from over a thousand Michigan practicing lawyers. Don’t spend time sifting through—it’s easy to find exactly what you need with these tips.

Start in the Right Place—A Resource or Practice Area

• Save yourself time by using the sidebar navigation to go deeper into the site before starting your research.

• General searches are great from My Resources, but you will get a lot of results—you’re searching everything!

No “Ands” Needed

• No need for "and" between terms—just type your keywords, and the system will find documents containing all of them (plus synonyms).

Example: Searching minor OWI will return results for both terms and related synonyms like child or operating while intoxicated.

3+ Search Terms Gets More Specific Results 

• For broader searches, use 1-2 terms. For more specific results, use 3+ terms.

Example: bankruptcy exemptions Chapter 11 for detailed information.

Sometimes You Need Quotation Marks

• For exact phrases, use quotation marks.

Example: "parenting time" will find documents with that exact phrase and related terms like visitation.

Exclude Unwanted Terms

• Use a minus sign [-] before words to exclude them.

Example: discovery -health -“federal courts” will return discovery documents but exclude results with health or federal courts.

Expand Your Search with OR

• Use OR (in caps) to find documents containing one or both terms.

Example: “power of attorney” OR “patient advocate” retrieves results for either or both phrases.

Refine Results with Filters

• Narrow your search by applying filters such as practice area, resource type, court, or year.

Example: After a search, click Practice Area to see related subtopics and refine your search further

Search Within Documents

• Search terms are highlighted in documents. Use Ctrl+F (Command+F for Mac) to jump straight to where your terms appear.

Following these tips will help you make the most of your new Partnership subscription and find the information you need faster!