Accordingly this post is the first of two based on that presentation dealing with the management side of taking your office paperless.

In Canada, legal researchers do not have many opportunities to search dockets of courts. That is not the case in the US. Manay of us will search US Court dockets infrequently. Today’s Tip: learn from the experts.

The American Bar Association Law Practice Magazine had an article last year titled Finding Info Like a Pro: Investigating Court Docket Databases. The article offers some tips, and it references a book that offers more.

Happy Searching.

Note: The Supreme Court of Canada Case Information database is available to searchers at http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/case-dossier/cms-sgd/search-recherche-eng.aspx…

We all need help on keeping up with our email. The Gmail styles feature could help you more quickly see the messages that are most important to you.

Gmail has several built-in configurations or “styles” that change how your Inbox sorts messages. In the Classic style – the default Inbox style – messages are ordered chronologically by the date they arrived (newest first). The other styles present messages in slightly different ways. These are the other styles and what they do:

• Unread First – Unread mail stays at the top; everything else is at the bottom.
• Starred First – Starred

…

Real estate costs can be one of a law firm’s highest expenses. There’s no reason to pay rent to house hundreds of case files, especially closed files, that could be much more inexpensively stored off site or converted to electronic format. As soon as possible, set aside some time to determine which files can be destroyed, which can be moved off-site for less expensive storage or digitized, and then, if you haven’t already done so, implement a system to begin creating a paperless file for each new case as you open it. You might even be able to rent out …

Today’s Tip: Life is improved by learning, so educate yourself.

I made some foolish choices in my youth about formal education that I have come to regret.

The good news, for me and others, is that there are plenty of opportunities to educate yourself. Whether it is continuing education about a specific topic or general life-long learning, basic legal research processes, a more esoteric topic like how tribunals can provide excellence in administrative justice, or updates in an area of law you have an interest or practice in, there are opportunities available to learn things.

Take in …

Most of you should be familiar with Google’s Street View. It allows you to see pictures of the street you are viewing on a Google Maps map. That can be very handy when you are wanting to know about the landmarks you should be looking for when you are driving to somewhere you have never been before.

But if you are wanting to have some fun with Google Street View, you can use MapCrunch to “teleport” or jump to a random place in the world.

MapCrunch allows you to easily explore the vast array of imagery captured by Google in …

Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

The world’s premier legal Technology conference takes place this Thursday-Sat, March 29-31, 2012 in Chicago. www.techshow.com has the complete schedule, speakers and more. Can’t make it this year? No worries. You can be there virtually by following the Twitter stream from the conference. #ABATECHSHOW is the hash tag to follow in Tweetdeck or similar Twitter software. In fact, many attendees follow the stream while at Techshow (both of the authors do!).

Why would you do so? The twitter …

Today’s Tip is by 3rd year University of Alberta law student Elsa Johnson in honour of law student week at Slaw.

I am actually writing a research paper at this very moment, and I was thinking back on first year research and how overwhelming it was. I’m not sure if this is a good “tip” or not, but what really stressed me out was not so much finding material (with all the databases and programs you are almost sure to find a ton of information), it was how to know when you have done enough.

I would always think “Is …

I am going to assume you have a recent complete back-up of all your computer hard drives. You do – don’t you?

Here is another important question: Do you have a Startup Repair disc?

Of course you do! But if you don’t, please take a few minutes to create one. It could be a lifesaver if your hard drive crashes. A Startup Repair disc can be used to start your computer in situations where your computer won’t boot-up due to corruption or damage on the hard drive.

Creating a Startup Repair disc is simple and fast. Put a blank writable …

The best time to prepare a to-do list for your day is 15 minutes before you go home the night before.

Why 15 minutes before?  Because it may never happen if you leave it as the last thing to do before you go home.  By the time you do just a few last minute jobs wishfully thinking “this won’t take me long” it starts to get late.  Then you are rushing out the door.  The list might not get done.

15 minutes before makes it more likely that you actually do it and give it the time it deserves.  It …