Kick your Gmail Account into High Gear

For those of you using Gmail from Google, you will want to check out 90 Tools And Tips To Make You A Gmail Pro. I haven't tried any of the add-ons, but the list comes highly recommended.

Site of The Week: LawProse's Educational Video Clips

This week's Website of the Week is the collection of educational video clips from LawProse. These contain some great two- or three-minute lessons on legal writing. In particular, I suggest you view the interviews with U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas. You will find both videos thought-provoking. Scroll down to the archives for a lot of additional material. (I didn't see the button to make the video display full-screen, so you can use right click and Zoom to do that.)

This site was suggested by William Bernhardt in a recent OBA seminar on improving your legal writing skills. Bernhardt is New York Times-bestselling author of over twenty mystery-thrillers that have sold more than ten million copies worldwide. He is also a member of the Oklahoma Bar Association. As someone who has spent a good deal of time following the cases and adventures of fictional Oklahoma lawyer Ben Kincaid, it was great to get some writing tips from his creator.

"I cannot open that document you sent me."

"I cannot open that document you sent me." We used to hear that a lot on the early days of law office computing as several word processors competed for market share. Well, we are starting to hear it a lot more this year.

As many of you know the primary programs in Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint and Excel) now have a new and improved file format, which is XML compliant. This can be noticed from the different file name extension; .docx instead of .doc and .pptx instead of .ppt. It can also be noticed when you try to open one of these "new" documents with the older version of the same software and they will not open. Luckily the "fix" for this is pretty simple, just go and download the Microsoft Compatability Pack to allow your Office 2003 version to read Office 2007 files.

When I got Office 2007 at the first of the year, I would try to remember to use "Save as" to save in the old format when I was sending something out by e-mail to make sure I didn't hear back with the "couldn't open" problem. That is surprisingly hard to rememebr. After about the third "can't open" message back, I gave up and set my default to save as the older format. I figured a year from now everyone will have either upgraded or installed the patch. Then I'll change to the new format and, meanwhile, if I need some power hidden in the new format I can always "save as" for that file.

Well, that worked for me and a few days later I was speaking to the Cleveland County Bar in Norman, Oklahoma, and mentioned that as an idea or tips of sorts.

Afterwards I was approached by Hank Ryan, a Norman lawyer and legal technology consultant. Hank smiled and made the comment that I had told them wrong about e-mail the Word files. "Oh?" I said and, since Hank is a high level tech guy, I assumed he was going to inform me about the numerous benefits of the XML file format.

"You're supposed to tell them not to e-mail Word files out at all, not teach them how!" he said. Hank and I shared a chuckle over that one, of course. He's correct. Due to metadata concerns, most lawyers would be much better served by sending files out in PDF format rather than Word. I'd been sending documents that were being jointly drafted to a co-author and had no choice.

But remember Hank's advice, not mine. Avoid e-mailing Word documents out when PDF will do. And have a metadata scrubber to use first when you have to e-mail out Word documents.

But if you are going to stick with the 2003 version of MS Office for a while, go ahead and download the Compatability pack and install it--because other people will be sending you Word documents.

Paste Special (Unformatted): The Next Generation

Copying text from one document to another without also capturing unwanted formatting is something most of us do daily. As a veteran presenter of many "50 Tips" or "60 Tips" programs, I have often discussed with my colleagues that using Edit-Paste Special-Unformatted text to paste into a document has been sort of the "Ultimate Tip" for lawyers. No matter how many times we publicized this technique, there were always two or three people who lighted up in the back of the room when they heard this tip. It was not uncommon to get an e-mail after a seminar that said "Thank you. Learning about paste special was worth the entire price of the seminar."

Well I got that same feeling today when I read a Lifehacker post about removing the formatting in Word documents. The problem with using Paste Special is that it involves clicking on several pull down menus with the mouse, which slows things down. Even if you put a "Paste Special" button on your toolbar, you still have to click on it and then click "unformatted text." You can also use the right click.

But, try this one today. When you have copied some text to your clipboard and want to paste it without formatting into a blank document, use these three keystroke combinations in quick succession: Ctrl + V, Ctrl + A and Ctrl + Spacebar. All done before you can reach for a mouse!

Ctrl + V inserts the copied text (as you all know.) Ctrl + A highlights all text on a page. Ctrl + Spacebar removes all formatting from selected text. Zoom, zoom, zoom.

Now if you are pasting into a document with formatting you don't want to destroy, you cannot use Ctrl + A and have to select the text to be "unformatted" another way. But there's a keyboard shortcut to do this too. Paste the text. Then, while holding down the Shift and Ctrl keys, (conveniently located next to each other) use the Up arrow key to select the text you have just pasted in paragraph by paragraph. So if you just pasted in three paragraphs, you will hit it three times. Then hit Ctrl + Spacebar.

Try this a few times. It is easier to do than to explain. Finally, if you want to know more go to the Lifehacker post. Read the comments. One person says holding down the Alt Key and pressing E, S, U and Enter is even quicker. Another has posted a macro to do this in one keystroke. These tips truly are "the next generation" of Paste Special. We probably all need to create the macro and assign it to a key combination. But for today, I'm just happy to do this more quickly than I did it yesterday.

Note: I follow Lifehacker, but will note that I got this today because Technolawyer dropped it into my inbox with its free Thursday Answers to Questions e-mail. 

2008 Summer Reading List: The Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft® Outlook 2007

I just got my copy of Ben Schorr's new book, The Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft® Outlook 2007, and have only spent a few moments with it. I'm excited about this book personally. I trust Ben's judgment. I was a co-presenter with him on a couple of law practice management panels at the ABA meeting in his home state of Hawaii a couple of years ago. (Yeah, tough duty, I know.) Ben's a law office technology consultant and IT guy who has a talent for explaining things where everyone can understand them. As much as I hate Vista, I think there are a lot of positive things about Microsoft Office 2007. I really like Outlook 2007. We all use e-mail every day now and there are so many Outlook features that most lawyers ignore like flags, tasks and mail merges. If you upgrade to Outlook 2007, someone in your office needs to read this book.

Since I have not read the book yet, I will defer to Laura Calloway's detailed review here. But after reading her review, I'm sure you will want to take a look at this publication if you are an Outlook 2007 user. Oklahoma Bar members who are not ABA Law Practice Management section members can contact my assistant, Sharon Dotson, for discounted pricing on this book.

Another Firm Improperly Redacts Important Documents

Today we have another report of a law firm making a technology blunder that appears to arguably violate a court order on what should be sealed and could adversely impact the client's case. According to an article originally published in the Connecticut Law Tribute, pleadings from a class action lawsuit against GE that the court ordered sealed were improperly redacted before being filed. Apparently anyone can access the pleadings through PACER, copy the redacted material and reveal the "redacted" text by pasting into a Word document. This is a class action sex discrimination suit seeking a potential $500 million recovery. Hopefully by now, the offending documents have been removed and others substituted.

Whether it is improper redaction of documents or metadata disclosure issues, the simple fact is that lawyers have to understand the technology tools that they and their staff are using. Judges are learning new technology lessons due to e-filing and electronic discovery and they will be less inclined to forgive lawyers who make these kinds of errors in the future. Don't try to do redaction without the proper tools, which means using Adobe Acrobat Professional 8 (not a prior version) if you are using Adobe to do it or one of the other redaction tools like the plug-in mentioned in the article.

Several months ago a lawyer called me expecting to be criticized, I think. They were working late on a deadline and became concerned about a few redactions they had to make. They ended up printing the documents, marking through the text with a black magic marker and then scanning/OCR'ing the marked document to create a new PDF. "I guess you think we were pretty dumb, huh?" He said. My response was that I thought they had all slept well that night, knowing that they had erred on the side of caution and were sure they hadn't disclosed any information by accident.

Gotta Love E-mail: Gotta Hate E-mail

What's your reaction when you hear of a lawyer who still doesn't use e-mail, or worse yet, has his secretary open and process his e-mail? It's sort of shocking to hear of a professional who doesn't use e-mail. You think they are backward, behind the times, a faithful follower of brother Ned Ludd or somehow just not a part of modern life.

You just have to love e-mail.  "Here let me send you that document now" and an entire brief from a colleague appears, all ready to plunder. Not interupting someone to ask a simple question. Being able to communicate on a flexible schedule. It's free. The sense of accomplishment when you finish a project and e-mail it off.

But, of course, you also have to hate e-mail. Spam. Receiving a joke for the 10th time. Those people who cannot be trained to consult Snopes.com before passing along some silly urban legend to everyone they know. Spam. Being BCC'd when you don't care. Starting your day with 100 new e-mails in your inbox. Mysteriously vanishing e-mail. Did I mention spam?

So today I'd like to pass along a couple of essays on this topic to you that I read this week. One is from Dan Costa, PC Magazine columnist, gives us "50 Reasons Not to Send that E-mail" and one is from my colleague, Ellen Freedman who writes on "Our Love/Hate Relationship with E-mail." (PDF File)

You see? It's not just you!

Thirty Dirty Tricks for Adobe Acrobat

I listened to a great webinar the other day and almost forgot to share the quite useful materials with you. Adobe's Rick Borstein and Tim Huff did 30 Dirty Tips for Acrobat 8 and I certainly learned some new tips.  If you have Adobe Acrobat 7 or 8, this is worth your time. As regular readers of my blog know, I have now come to the conclusion that Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional is a "must have" tool for the modern law office. Here's Rick's blog post with the link to download their materials, in PDF format, of course. The file is pretty big  (1.83 MB) and so I'd suggest that when you get to the blog post you use "Right click- Save target as .. " rather than opening in a browser window.

Unfortunately, I was not able to be one of the 337 people who listened to the Creating Acrobat Forms for Legal Professionals seminar by Rick Borstein and Mark Middleton a few days ago. But you can go here to download the seminar materials, links to lots of good information on the topic and some samples. In particular, the sample document with buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons and electronic signature fields is interesting. Gee, Rick, I wish I already knew how to do all of that.

Create Your Own Fonts

PC Magazine highlights this font creating process that is so delightfully geeky that I don't care that you have to purchase a $79 piece of software to do it. Make your own fonts out of your handwriting or your kid's handwriting. Change your default font for your e-mails to your own handwriting. "Handwritten" e-mails would be very retro. So many uses.

Adobe Acrobat 8 Legal Resource Guide

I got the following information from Adobe today and think it is worth passing on to you.

Below please find the "hot-off-the-press" Adobe Acrobat Legal Resource Guide with links to free downloads, training, support, and informational resources.

Free Downloads & Trials

Acrobat 8.0 Professional Trial Download - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/tryout.html

Adobe Reader 8.0 Download - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Adobe Document Center Free Trial - http://www.adobe.com/products/onlineservices/documentcenter/features.html

Acrobat Connect Free Trial - http://www.adobe.com/go/freewebconferencing_2006

Training

Acrobat 8.0 Teaching & Learning Resources - http://www.adobe.com/education/instruction/teach/acrobat.html?tab:acrostdpro=1

Acrobat 8.0 Experience Flash Demo - http://www.adobe.com/go/acrobat8exp_uk

Acrobat 8.0: What's New for Legal Professionals OnDemand eSeminar (recording) - http://seminars.adobe.acrobat.com/p17441268/

Acrobat Online Legal Events - http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=list&loc=en_us&type=online_event&product=&interest=sol_legal

Adobe Events in Your Area
http://www.adobe.com/events

Acrobat Resources

Adobe Solutions for Legal Professionals Website - www.adobe.com/go/legal

Acrobat 8.0 Pro - New Features for Legal Professionals - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/solutions/legal/productinfo/features/index.html

Acrobat 8.0 for Legal Professionals Whitepaper - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/solutions/pdfs/Acrobat8_foLegalPros.pdf

Acrobat 8.0 Product Family Detailed Comparison Matrix - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/pdfs/acrobat8_matrix.pdf

Acrobat 8.0 Professional Feature Overview - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/pdfs/acrobatpro_overview.pdf

Acrobat 8.0 Professional Datasheet - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/pdfs/acrobatpro_datasheet.pdf

Acrobat Connect Resources - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/

Support

Acrobat for Legal Professionals Blog - http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/

New Adobe Annual Support Plans - http://www.adobe.com/support/programs/

Free Acrobat Support, Tutorials and Forums - http://www.adobe.com/support/products/acrobat.html

Acrobat Developer Center - http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/

Adobe Support Knowledgebase - http://www.adobe.com/support/

Licensing

Adobe License Manager - http://www.adobe.com/go/alm

Volume Software Licensing Programs - http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/openoptions/index.html