So, how does Legal Office Guru help you?

If you're a legal professional - attorney, paralegal, legal assistant, secretary, anyone who works in a law office - this is the place to get your most critical questions about Microsoft Office answered ... without taking up huge chunks of the day with formal training.

And this isn't just "list a bunch of steps like a textbook and expect you to figure it out" training -- many posts feature video training to show you exactly how to perform tasks in Word, Excel, Outlook, and other Microsoft Office applications.

I'm constantly looking to improve Legal Office Guru's content, so be on the lookout for features like:

Downloadable pdf Cheat Sheets you can save for later reference, like my Fast Formatting Fixes Guide or my Word Skills Checklist
Courses like The Efficient Lawyer's Guide to Word and my Pleading Paper course that group related tutorials together for your easy reference
Enhanced search capability to enable to you find what you need fast

(Because law firms are not traditionally "first adopters," selected tutorials that include information on versions 2002 (a.k.a. XP) and 2003 will remain available. However, because reader surveys have shown that most readers have moved to the ribbon-based versions (2007-2016), newer tutorials will focus on those versions. Since Microsoft has discontinued general support for versions 2007 and 2010, tutorials published starting January 1, 2016 will only include instruction for versions 2013, 2016 and Office 365.)

I hope you'll frequent this site for our brief, to-the-point tutorials on how to perform critical tasks, enabling you to be the most productive legal professional you can be!

What others say about Legal Office Guru

Nerino Petro

Compujurist

One of my frustrations in Word has been how to copy just the text in a specific column in a multi-column layout in Word. I am frustrated no longer: I came across the Legal Office Guru blog and a great tip on Copying vertical columns of text in Word. ... Legal Office Guru has a short and simple video tutorial on [this feature]. Simple, quick and easy – this is my kind of tip and it is one that will save me time and angst in the future.

Sarah

commenting on Why your pages break in weird places

I have been looking for solutions to this for MONTHS. I officially love you.

Lisa

commenting on Using and formatting columns in Microsoft Wort

Kudos for focusing on exactly the right questions on using Word in a law practice, and thank you for such simple explanations.

Who is this "Legal Office Guru"?

Hi, my name's Deborah Savadra, and over the course of my career (which has been more like a careen), I've worked in law offices as a legal secretary, paralegal, and technology "fixer upper." I left the legal field in the 1990s to work as an ERP analyst in the Information Technology department of a large restaurant chain, eventually moving into software implementation and training as a traveling consultant for a national computer consulting firm during the run-up to Y2K.

I started my own consulting firm in 2000 and have spent considerable time since then providing training for local law firms, including those who are transitioning from WordPerfect to Word as well as those simply looking to improve their staff's current skills with the Microsoft Office suite.

This blog is my attempt to educate legal professionals everywhere, doing what I can to improve efficiency, reduce stress, and generally make life in a law office easier!