Q: A few months ago, I needed to verify the date of a client's Ohio divorce judgment. I searched Marriage Records-Ohio, but those records covered marriage licenses only and didn't say anything about divorces. (Westlaw didn't offer a database of Ohio divorce records.) Where else can I look?

A: As of September 11, 2007, divorce records are available for the following 15 states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. Four of these states—California, Illinois, New York, and Ohio—are new to Westlaw. In addition, more of Texas is covered, while records for most of Florida and Nevada are updated more frequently than before. As a result, approximately 2.5 million divorce records have been added to Westlaw.

You can search all available records simultaneously using the Divorce Records Combined database (DIVORCE-ALL). The identifier for an individual state's divorce records database is DIVORCE-XX, where XX is the state's two-letter postal abbreviation. To search, access the appropriate state's database, type the individual's name, e.g., john smith, in the Name text box, and click Search Westlaw.