During a recent interview, legal technology expert Dennis Kennedy was aghast at the continuing resistance of lawyers to even basic document assembly. Here’s an excerpt of that interview, including his suggestions for where lawyers should start.
If you’ve been working with legal briefs lately, you’ve probably typed “id.” more times than you can count. Here, I show you a trick that one of your fellow readers told me about: having AutoCorrect turn “id.” into its underlined form automagically. Click the link below or the title above to see the full illustrated tutorial.
I’ll admit it: I am not a world-class typist. I can do about 85-90 on a good-to-average day, but years of working with word processors has made my error rate a little dodgy.
And I’ve noticed, over the years, that no matter how much typing practice I get, there are a few words I misspell (really, mistype — I actually do know how to spell them!) frequently. That annoys me. A lot.
But taking the advice of my fellow blogger Vivian Manning, I’m going to stop obsessing about typos and let the computer do more of the work for me. Because if the machines can do more work, why not let them? And because not many people know how to get Microsoft Word to correct their common typos, I’m going to show you how. (Because I want you to do less busywork, too!)
Click the link below to learn how.
Ever have the same phrase, sentence or even paragraph repeat over and over in a document you’re typing? Microsoft Word’s AutoText feature can help automate it!
If your law firm does litigation work, you’ve probably prepared lots of discovery. And you may have wondered if there’s any way you can avoid typing the phrase “Interrogatory No. X” in Microsoft Word over and over again and get that X to be an automatically incrementing number. If so, the answer is, yes, you can!
Click through for a complete tutorial on how to use field codes in Microsoft Word to automatically number interrogatories, requests for production, requests for admission, or other legal discovery.
Want to save that “Page X of Y” footer you like instead of having to rebuild it every time you use it? Here’s a little-known trick in Microsoft Word’s Quick Parts: how to save document components so they’re accessible in menus like Footer, Watermark, etc.
If your documents ever need a phrase like “the 15th day of August, 2012” and you don’t want to wait until the last minute to correct it in your document, here’s how you can embed a date that includes a self-updating ordinal date (that “15th” part) and a self-updating month and year. Click through for the demonstration.
Word makes some formatting decisions behind the scenes, some of which (in my experience) tend to get in your way while you work. Here are 5 options you’ll want to re-set in Microsoft Word for a smoother word processing experience.
Even those who have used Quick Styles frequently don’t know that there are lots more Styles available in Word. Getting one-click access to a Style, though, really requires that it be listed in the Quick Styles gallery (that list on the right-hand side of the Home tab). If there’s a particular Style that you always want…
If none of the Quick Styles in Microsoft Word meet your needs, make one of your own! Here’s how.
If you’ve got several phrases that you’re typing over and over in a particular document, save time by learning to use the Clipboard to select and paste each one. Here’s a tutorial on how to display and manipulate the contents of the Clipboard.
Copying text from a WordPerfect document into Word can result in formatting disasters. Here’s how to avoid problems.
Track Changes is a great feature, but if you don’t know where the pitfalls are, you could wind up in serious trouble. Here are a few things you should watch out for.
In response to a prior post, one reader expressed one of her biggest frustrations with the Normal template: it’s hard to get changes to “stick” permanently. If you’re tired of continually resetting margins, fonts and paragraph spacing, here’s help.
If every document you draft starts with either a completely blank page or the last version of whatever you’re drafting, you’re missing out on the power of custom templates. Click the title above to see the essential elements of a custom pleading template, plus find out what digging in your sock drawer has in common with working in Microsoft Word.
If you’re anything like the typical lawyer, your document creation process could stand some improvements. Here’s an eye-opening experiment you can do with your smartphone to show you where your inefficiencies lie.
Want to do things faster in Microsoft Word? These four time-saving features are where you will get the most bang for your buck. Learning these will shave time off daily repetitive tasks, making you more efficient (and maybe even helping you get out of the office earlier!). Click the link below to find out more about how these features can make you more efficient.
Microsoft Word’s Table of Authorities feature isn’t exactly known for its user-friendliness. Nobody’s ever said the word “automagically” about it. And more than one enterprising software vendor has found a lucrative niche making an easier-to-use interface for TOAs. I’ve had to use this feature myself on several occasions recently, and I’ve rediscovered seven ways you can easily (and thoroughly) screw up a Table of Authorities. Do yourself a favor and click through to learn from my mistakes!
A reader contacted me recently with a real puzzler: What to do when a citation in a footnote doesn’t get picked up in the Table of Authorities. If you’re having this problem, there’s a solution. Click through for the details.
The last thing you need to be doing during a trial is frantically searching for the right exhibit. Laying your hands on the correct document becomes a whole lot easier when they’re in file folders marked with clear, easy-to-read labels. Here’s how to use Microsoft Word’s Mail Merge feature to transform your exhibit list into a set of labels with the exhibit number in large spot-it-from-across-the-room print.
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