Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Technology

Speed Up Your Computer by Keeping an Empty Desktop
Luigi Benetton

It’s common for people to replace their computers every three or four years. They seem to believe performance degrades so much that they need new machines to gain speed increases. Sometimes that’s true. Hard disk drives,for instance, can wear over time. Inexpensive machines aren’t usually built to be upgraded. …

Research & Writing

Use Abridgment Topics to . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

CanLII Adds the Canadian Legal Research and Writing Guide
Susannah Tredwell

For anyone looking a good guide to legal research, Catherine Best’s “Best Guide to Canadian Legal Research” has been updated by a team of legal research experts (Melanie Bueckert, André Clair, Maryvon Côté, Yasmin Khan and Mandy Ostick) and added to CanLII’s commentary section. ….

Technology

Speed Up Your Computer by Closing Unnecessary Applications
Luigi . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Technology

Delete Unwanted Emails BEFORE You See Them
Luigi Benetton

I like exploring ways to improve my Inbox Zero habit. This habit enables me to effectively handle everything that comes at me via email. I do this by: putting the information in the right places, deleting or filing the original email. The email inbox is never the right place for contacts, calendar appointments, tasks or other things I need . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Technology

Remove Formatting From Copied Text
Luigi Benetton

Researching articles. Writing school assignments. Quoting other people in blog posts. During each activity, I usually cut text from one document and paste it into another. …

Research & Writing

Is It OK or Okay?
Neil Guthrie

Not a question that arises in connection with drafting a contract or pleadings (one hopes), but certainly in composing e-mail. Both are recognised forms. . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

Bad HR Jargon
Neil Guthrie

We’ve covered bad business jargon in this space, but other fields of endeavour are guilty of polluting the language with their specialist lingo. Human resources (itself a piece of HR jargon; it used to be personnel or, in a more sexist age, manpower) comes to mind. …

Technology

Refresh Your RSS Reader
Emma Durand-Wood

Today’s tip is part tech, part research. . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

Has an Act Come Into Force?
Susannah Tredwell

While some acts come into force on Royal Assent, many require Proclamation or an Order in Council to do so. A number of provinces publish tables that let you see if a specific act has been proclaimed…

Technology

Use an Email Recall System That Actually Works
Luigi Benetton

People who try to recall an email after they’ve sent . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

The Case of the Disappearing Comma
Neil Guthrie

LinkedIn helpfully provides readymade comments on the updates that your connections post there. If your colleague Luisa has a new job, you can just click on a button below her update to post an immediate Congrats Luisa. …

Technology

Force PDFs to Download Instead of Load in Browser
Emma Durand-Wood

Are there fillable PDF forms on your website? . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Technology

Corral Multiple Email Addresses Into One Email Client
Luigi Benetton

Do you have two or more email addresses? Tired of flipping between web pages to check them all? Why bother. Instead, set them all up in one email client. Here’s what this looks like on my computer. …

Research & Writing

Gallop Portal
Alan Kilpatrick

Did you know that the Gallop Portal (Government and Legislative Libraries Online Publications . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Practice

Check Your Email – at Scheduled Times Only
Ian Hu

I would hazard a guess that one of the very first things you do when you sit down at the office is check emails. Of the 5, 10, 50, or 100 emails you are reviewing, are any of them urgent? I suspect you already know what absolutely must be done on any given day. …

Research & Writing . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

Citing Case Law and Legislation
Susannah Tredwell

The 9th edition of the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation (better known as the McGill Guide) was published earlier this summer. The most important change was no longer requiring a parallel citation in addition to a neutral citation. …

Technology

Minimize Email Triage Time
Luigi Benetton

Imagine if your email system could look like this at the end . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Technology

Uncover Hidden Document Metadata
Luigi Benetton

Each time an electronic document comes into being, metadata is created along with it. People often add their own, too. From the obvious (like page numbers) to the obscure (like dates of creation and author names), every piece of metadata serves some purpose. …

Research & Writing

Create CanLII Alerts
Alan Kilpatrick

Did you know that you can receive instant notifications every . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Practice

Three Letters = One Powerful Question
Allison Wolf

Who? Who could help me with this? One of the biggest mistakes a lawyer can make is not asking for help. Help can mean many things. It can mean getting advice on a file. Many lawyers the mistake of going it alone, only to realize too late that turning to another lawyer for guidance would be the best course of . . . [more]