what would a lawyer need to write up with microsoft word

What are the best tips for lawyers using Microsoft Word?

My first and perhaps most important tip for lawyers using Microsoft Word is: learn how to reset formatting in Word. When your document formatting gets "off," it can be very difficult to get it back in order. You can have invisible tables fighting for space, mixed styles, and strange page layouts.

Is MS Word necessary for a modern lawyer?

Some of the applications it contains, namely MS Word, are inescapably necessary for a modern lawyer to be familiar with. While others, like Planner, are a helpful addition to a cost conscious office. But they aren’t necessarily the industry standard.

How can I Make my Word documents work better for legal documents?

There are a few other tricks you can do to make your Word documents work better for legal documents — like hanging indents for certain headings and specific styles for block quotes. I strongly recommend exploring those features as you start making your own templates.

How can I improve my legal writing skills?

Create templates and save for company-wide use to keep specific designs and stylings in place and ready to go. This one step can shave several minutes off the time it takes to produce each document, allowing you to work faster with less chance for serious errors. Ready for more ways to improve your legal writing?

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How lawyers use MS Word?

Whether it's a contract clause or a section to a pleading, lawyers often use sentences, phrases, or even entire paragraphs that are repeated in various documents. To maintain consistency and accuracy, you may be in the habit of opening a recent document so you can copy and paste the text into the new draft.

Do law firms use Microsoft Word?

Microsoft Word is possibly the most used tool in a lawyer's toolbox. From drafting depositions to collaborating with teams outside your firm, it's an amazing tool chock-full of features to help you run your business.

Do lawyers use Microsoft Office?

For lawyers, Microsoft Office is as close to a must-have piece of technology as there is. Some of the applications it contains, namely MS Word, are inescapably necessary for a modern lawyer to be familiar with. While others, like Planner, are a helpful addition to a cost conscious office.

How do you create a legal document in word?

0:201:27Microsoft Word 2016 Training for Lawyers: Using Legal Templates ...YouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipAnd then type your desired. Search terms such as legal or law then click the start searching buttonMoreAnd then type your desired. Search terms such as legal or law then click the start searching button to the right to display any templates that contain the word legal or law within their titles.

Does Word have a legal template?

Document template editor for lawyers using Microsoft Word The document generation process has been optimized in Legal One. Currently it is possible for the user to generate document templates through Microsoft Word, by using a pre-defined list of Legal One tags.

How do you format a legal document?

How to Set Up a Legal Document FormatOpen a new blank document in Word. ... Change the standard letter size of 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches to legal-sized paper. ... Change to the appropriate margin sizes if and when necessary. ... Select a standard serif font type such as Times New Roman, Courier or New York.More items...

Can lawyers use OneDrive?

There are a lot of cloud storage options out there, for lawyers and laypeople alike. But Microsoft's OneDrive stands out, largely because of its ubiquity. The online file hosting service comes included with Windows 8 and 10 and integrates directly with Microsoft Office applications, like Word and Excel.

How do you look up a word in the thesaurus without doing it from the word ribbon?

At the bottom of the Thesaurus task pane, select a language from the drop-down list.Select the word in your notebook that you want to look up.In OneNote 2007, on the Tools menu, click Research, and then in the All Reference Books list, click Thesaurus.More items...•

Why should a firm use Outlook instead of just having a Gmail or Yahoo account that they check in their browser?

Outlook provides multiple ways to track down what users are looking for, whether its search, folders, categories, sort emails in inbox, search folders, etc. With Gmail, users do not have a way to sort email by size, date or sender and are stuck with just one thing – search!

How do I make a legal pleading paper in Word?

Launch Microsoft Word On the File menu, click on New. Click on Legal Pleadings. Double click on PLEADING WIZARD. This starts the “Pleading Wizard” program that takes you through the steps to create your own template.

What are the problems with not knowing Microsoft Word?

The problems that arise from not knowing Word are manifold: janky-looking documents, disappearing text, formatting errors, and documents that simply crash. On the other hand, lawyers that are good at Microsoft Word can make reliably nice-looking and well-formatted documents and can fix documents that have problems.

Does Google Docs have Word Perfect?

Aside from a few obstinate holdouts, no one uses Word Perfect anymore, and Google Docs just doesn't have the features needed for serious legal document formatting ( for now ). Thus, whether you think Word is a great tool or a necessary evil, you need to know Word to practice law.

Can you paste text into a Word document?

PRO TIP: Never paste text into a Word document unless you choose the "keep text only" option - or use Notepad as an intermediate step. Pasting text directly and retaining formatting can add bizarre formatting into your Word document.

What is the first step in making Word work for you?

As such, the first step in making Word work for you is to ensure that you’re on top of the most common shortcuts and time-savers.

What are the features of Microsoft Word?

Here are 13 Microsoft Word features that every lawyer should know. 1. Basic shortcuts: For the essentials. When you’re dealing with creating, scanning, and managing with a high volume ...

What is a template in writing?

Templates are exactly what they sound like: You can use them as a basis for letters, arguments, and other documents rather than starting from a blank page every time. Spend less time formatting and never send out an inconsistent-looking letter again. Here’s how to do it.

What is the style feature in Word?

With Word Styles, you can set standard formatting for everything, including: The Styles feature is one of the most powerful available in Word, and knowing the basics can be a big time-saver for lawyers. For an overview on how to create, modify, and customize styles, check out Microsoft’s styles basics page. 3.

How to add a hyperlink to a Word document?

Add the hyperlink by pasting the URL via: Insert > Hyperlink, or. right-click and select Hyperlink, or. “Ctrl + K” (PC) or “Command + K” (Mac).

Does Microsoft have a template?

Microsoft also has an online library of templates available, so you don’t have to start from scratch. For example, here’s their civil litigation pleadings template:

Does Word have a toolbar?

It’s handy to see all of your tools in one place in Word, but sometimes, you need a bit more space to concentrate. Luckily, Word allows you to temporarily get rid of the Ribbon (the main toolbar at the top of the screen) for distraction-free writing.

What is style in Word?

Styles are easy to apply and control, unlike direct formatting, which can cause problems in a document. Styles allow the user to reformat any size document in minutes, from spacing to font to pagination.

What is Quick Parts in Legal Practice?

Located under the Insert tab, Quick Parts allows users to store commonly used text by template for easy organization. The Building Blocks Organizer within Quick Parts is a general space to store commonly used text no matter which document is open.

Is it important to use non-Microsoft fonts?

Therefore, it’s important for document standardization to stick with Word’s own fonts.

Is it better to start a new document from an existing one?

It may seem simpler to start a new document from an existing one, but it could actually cause more issues. It’s easy to miss document properties, as well as data fields where client information is held, which can lead to confidentiality breaches. Starting fresh from a template ensures that it is a clean document and up-to-date.

Where do lawyers store their documents?

A modern law office must store its documents somewhere other than in a physical file cabinet. A remote office needs to do it somewhere in the cloud. Microsoft Office offers two options for lawyers looking to store their data, and, depending on your set-up, either one could be right for you.

What is the most underused application in Office?

One of the most underused applications in the Office suite is the Planner app. This is Microsoft’s answer to Trello, Monday, Asana, and other Kanban style project management applications. Here, lawyers should be utilizing the shared workspace to keep track of team members’ tasks, and to create workflows for common tasks.

What is a template in Word?

Templates can be easily created in Microsoft Word so you can quickly build and edit documents that your office commonly uses. These are documents like standard Leases, Simple Wills, Powers of Attorney, and other documents that contain a lot of boilerplate. Templates can get very complex and, as you’ll see, are very powerful. However, don’t get overwhelmed. Templates can be as simple as a document with a pre-formatted caption at the top, or useful correspondence with your local court clerk on your letterhead.

What is the work horse of the Office suite?

Word is a processing, editing, publishing, and reviewing platform that is by far the industry standard. Lawyers should be using this to red-line documents, create standard files from templates, and automate files that are reused frequently. They should understand what meta-data is being stored, how to use version control (and document compare), and how to use Quick Styles to make their document formatting easier.

Is Office 365 a software?

Office 365. Microsoft Office, classically, has been a set of loosely related productivity software with familiar graphics and similar underlying programming. The programs generally work well together. However, many times, you would need to use Microsoft’s proprietary coding language to get complex integrations done.

Is Microsoft Office 365 a suite of applications?

However, Microsoft Office is not simply a suite of related applications anymore. Since the release of Office 365, it has gradually become a collection of integrated services with built-in document management, team collaboration, and resource integration software. On this Page. Basics of Microsoft Office. What Microsoft Office Does for Lawyers.

Is Microsoft Office good for lawyers?

For lawyers, Microsoft Office is as close to a must-have piece of technology as there is. Some of the applications it contains , namely MS Word, are inescapably necessary for a modern lawyer to be familiar with. While others, like Planner, are a helpful addition to a cost conscious office. But they aren’t necessarily the industry standard. Although, you may not like all of the Office applications, you almost certainly need some of them (or at least a familiarity with them). Because of this, we dedicate a lot of resources to helping lawyers use these applications to the best of their ability.

What are character styles in Word?

Certain styles apply to parts of paragraphs only. In Word, these are called character styles. Common examples include Hyperlink and Emphasis. Emphasis is useful when you want to highlight a term within a paragraph of text, or italicize a case name or publication in a citation.

Why do firms use templates?

Using templates helps keep the branding of a firm’s documents consistent.

Why do we use headings in Word?

Heading 1 (and 2 and 3) Breaking up text with headings helps readers navigate long documents. Heading styles also get picked up by Word’s automatic table of contents feature so that you need not manually create the TOC or revise it when you move sections around. (See “Word Styles: Automating a Table of Contents.”)

How to mark a citation in a legal document?

To do this, first select the text that you wish to mark as a citation within your table of authorities. Then click the “Mark Citation” button in the “Table of Authorities” button group on the “References” tab within the Ribbon. The keyboard shortcut for this dialog box is “Alt”+“Shift”+“I” on your keyboard. That will cause the “Mark Citation” dialog box to appear.

What is TA in Word?

When you mark a legal citation, Word will insert a hidden TA (Table of Authorities Entry) field within your document next to the cited text. You can then search for the next long or short citation within the document to mark or you can automatically mark each of the following occurrences of the citation within the document.

Why are templates critical to a law office?

Traditionally, it’s not uncommon to “Find, Rename and Modify” old documents to input new information. However this leaves a lot of room for error, and there’ s a high risk of carrying over metadata from the previous file. Not to mention that this is a slow and unwieldy process.

How to set up style in Word 2016?

To set up the styles in Word 2016: Format text the way you want, selecting font, size, color, and more. Select your formatted text. Right-click the text (the Font dialogue box will open) Click the arrow next to the styles gallery. Choose the Create a Style option. Choose a name for your style and click Ok . You can create as many styles as you need.

What are the settings in Word?

When you open Word, a variety of settings are in place, including font (Calibri), size (11) and basic margins (1” all around) on the default document. If you know that your work documents require different settings, you can change these easily.

Can you use an existing template?

It can be tempting to use an existing document and build your template from there. Resist the temptation. Format changes and inconsistencies in that document will follow you into the next and increase the chance for mistakes.

Can you create as many styles as you need?

You can create as many styles as you need. Then when it’s time to use one type of heading or text in your document, the pre-design ed style is already there.

Can you set paragraph indents in Word?

You can open and set the Paragraph Indents and Spacing defaults the same way. For Word 2010, use this spacing guide. Nearly every spacing, font or style option can be set as a default, just look for the “Save as Default” option in the dialogue box when setting your preferences.

Can you mark all cases until we get to an authority that has another citation?

9.You can continue to mark all the cases until we get to an authority that has another citation.

Can you use passive voice in legal writing?

Every legal tutorial on the internet is on the things learned in legal writing class: never use passive voice, make sure your headings tell the story, avoid legalese, and whatever you do avoid block quotes at all cost. Someone needs to create tutorials on actual brief construction and how to use Word to do this.