Technology has become an essential part of practising law and working in a law office (or any office for that matter). My TechTips column from the Summer 2008 issue of LAWPRO Magazine summarizes what I think are the 10 essential technology skills and practices that every lawyer and law office staff person should be familiar with.
Do you know what Alt+Tab does? How about a right-click on your mouse? Do you know how to use Cut, Copy and Paste? How about Paste Special. The text format shortcuts will save you tons of time next time you have to type up a factum.
If you don't know what I am talking about – please read the article – it will make you a keyboard wizard.
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More: in Education & Training: CLE/PD or Practice of Law or Substantive Law or Technology | from Dan Pinnington
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There is good leagal content that doesn’t necessarily come in the neat packages that we usually look in. Though our commercial legal database subscriptions have linked, vetted, edited, and easily. […] »»Research When you need to collaborate on a document displayed on your screen, it’s great to have a colleague from down the hall come into your office and look over your … »»Technology You should assess whether you can accept the financial risks associated with taking the matter, just as clients will assess whether they can (and will) pay your fee. Spend time at the beginning of the. […] »»Practice
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Available online today are four new chapters of the publication Women in Canada: A Gender-based Statistical Report, which explores the socio-demographic and economic circumstances of Canadian women in general.
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The bill amends the Constitution Act, 1867 by readjusting the number of members and the representation of the provinces in the House of Commons.
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Blueseed plans to buy a ship and turn it into a floating incubator anchored in international waters off the coast of California.
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Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the flow of information out of Ottawa has slowed to a trickle.
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"…the IPC has exclusive jurisdiction to decide whether a record is in the custody or control of a university in the context of an access request…"
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John J.L. Hunter, Q.C. of Vancouver has been elected President for 2011-2012
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Detailed results from 321 members.
These summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book.
More information.
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Banks and Banking - Liability of banks to third parties - Negligence - General
The plaintiffs were the former shareholders of a company that failed. They sued the defendant bank alleging that it breached its contract with the company and the plaintiffs and breached a duty ...
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Actions - Cause of action - General principles - New or extended cause of action - Opening of floodgates
The plaintiff and defendant worked at different branches of the same bank. The defendant’s common-law husband was the plaintiff’s ex-husband. Over a four year period, the defendant ...
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Aliens - Definitions and general principles - Immigration consultants
The Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC) had been designated as the sole regulatory body of immigration consultants in Canada from 2004 until June 2011. On June 30, 2011, Bill C-35 came into force, which significantly amended ...
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Criminal Law - Sexual offences, public morals and disorderly conduct - Public morals - Obscenity - Possession of child pornography
The accused was convicted of making child pornography available and two counts of possession of child pornography (see [2010] Sask.R. Uned. 197). Subsequently, he was sentenced ...
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Criminal Law - Procedure - Charge or directions - Jury or judge alone - Directions regarding pleas or evidence of witnesses, co-accused and accomplices
Rowe was convicted by a jury of five offences. He appealed.
The Ontario Court of Appeal allowed ...
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Narcotic Control - Offences - Possession - General
The accused wished to access marijuana for medicinal purposes but did not have an authorization to possess marijuana issued under the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations. He was notified that a package of marihuana addressed to him had been ...
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Narcotic Control - General - Legislation - Exemptions - Medicinal marijuana
McCrady, who had an application pending under the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) to possess and grow marijuana, was convicted of possession of marijuana (Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), s. 4(1)). Hearn pleaded guilty ...
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Criminal Law - Sentence - Trafficking in hashish or marijuana (incl. possession for purposes of trafficking)
The accused pleaded guilty to one count of possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking. He was sentenced to 30 days’ imprisonment to be served intermittently and 11 months’ ...
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Municipal Law - Powers of municipalities - Particular powers - Imposition and collection of taxes or fees
Catalyst Paper Corp. operated a paper mill in the District of North Cowichan. Catalyst objected to the tax rate that it paid compared to residential ratepayers. In 2009, the ...
This is a listing of a few upcoming events in Canada of interest to lawyers, law students, legal librarians, and others involved in the practice of law.
Clicking on any event in the list below will give you access to more information and to links allowing you to see the full entry and to add the event to your own calendar.
Click this link for a fuller version of the TalkLaw/ParLoi calendar of events and for instructions as to how to add events and calendars to your own calendar.
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One of the features of Word that I use constantly is the ability to create macros. (As of course as was inevitable, the Word macro feature is far less functional (and is getting worse) than what was available in WordPerfect 5.1.) I use macros to invoke a style, a template document and many other features like special characters, é (Ctrl e), è (Ctrl f), § (Ctrl s), £ (Ctrl l), etc. For this reason, I assign combinations like Ctrl B (a bullet) to macros and use the old WordPerfect function keys, F2 for search, Alt F2 for search and replace, F4 for indent, F6, etc, for things like bold and italics.
The other feature that saves me literally hours is AutoCorrect. I use this not only to correct the common mistakes I make in typing but for the names of clients, common abbreviations, acronyms, case names, citations, names of statutes, etc. It is particularly useful that one can, for example, produce London Drugs Limited v. Kuehne & Nagel International Ltd., [1992] 3 S.C.R. 299, 97 D.L.R. (4th) 261, from ldxf (f, meaning “in full”) and ldxc (c, meaning “citation”), ldx itself being reserved for the short form, London Drugs. I have some 3,000 to 4,000 such abbreviations. I have also, for example, automated my response to the standard audit comfort letter inquiries that come around the firm.
I have developed a standard “template” for hundreds of common words. I have a root abbreviation of, say, “cnx“ and from this I make contract (cnx), contractual (cnxl), contractually (cnxy), contracts (cnxs), contracted (cnxd), contracting (cnxg), contractor (cnxr), subcontractor (scnxr), general contractor (gcnxr), and so on.
And, of course, I have a macro to open AutoCorrect (Alt \)
Hi Angela,
Thank you so much for that suggestion about AutoCorrect. I've been using it more and more lately, but I hadn't figured out a way of handling different derivatives of a word like "contract". I'm going to give your approach a try!
In gratitude, I thought I might share with you something I discovered about typing accented international characters: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/120085 . I hope this helps!
In the unlikely event you are using a program that does not use Windows or Mac … there are ASCII codes for the accented letters too, using the Alt key and the numbers pad, as described here.
I take back "unlikely" – I guess that Control key technique cited by MS works on MS programs. It does not work on my Eudora email. So the Alt key technique becomes more important …
One can also choose alternative keyboards for different languages, if one types in different ones often enough (and knows the layout of the keys so as to avoid having to paste little labels on the keys), by adjusting the Regional and Language settings in the Control Panel (in PCs). Then one can switch to the other keyboard layout by Alt + Shift.