Verb endings: a small but tricky point.

If you’re from the USA, the practice (noun) of law is practiced (verb) by lawyers. If you’re from the UK, the practice is practised. Here in Canada, we see both verb forms – but preferred usage (by me, anyway) is to go British.

So, is it admitted to practice or admitted to practise? Either is defensible: the first means admitted to the practice of law, the second permitted to engage in practising. Practice is better in this context, on the grounds the noun is what people probably have in mind (although …

I’ve been working in and through the “cloud” since before it was called the cloud. First and foremost, I learned how to credibly publish to the web. If we haven’t met – google “legaltypist”…

I set up my service based company, LegalTypist, Inc., to be able to securely work with any attorney who could dial a toll-free number; and I amassed others who were like me to do the day to day tasks and typing of the law firms I set up on “the System” <-original I know, but the more technical name makes people’s eyes glaze over!

I picked …

Press releases are a good source of free current awareness alerts and a legitimate resource for understanding the intent of new legislation. I’m sharing a few of my favourite sources for timely and helpful press releases today. I’m a BC law librarian so I use these three sources often. Please share your own favourite sources for press releases for your area of Canada in the comments!

Supreme Court of Canada – There are two places you can sign up for press releases from the SCC, but if you want the most timely updates, get this one*, not this one…

♫ Love was out to get me
That’s the way it seemed.
Disappointment haunted all my dreams…♫

Music and lyrics by Neil Diamond and recorded by The Monkees.

I have a confession to make. While I love technology, I am not quite sure the feelings are mutual. You see, technology has come to disappoint me so many times that I am questioning its intentions. In fact it causes me concern when thinking of the rise of artificial intelligence. You see, if technology at its current level of development can be so confounding, what lies in store when technology …

Strive for neutrality, or at least balance.

As Richard Wydick suggests in his excellent Plain English for Lawyers, ‘many readers, both women and men, will be distracted and perhaps offended if you use masculine terms to refer to people who are not necessarily male.’

Wydick also notes that it’s equally distracting to use ‘clumsy efforts to avoid masculine terms’, or to use only feminine terms to redress imbalance (and the latter has a sort of law-school ring to it, which may not be what you’re aiming for). And we can safely leave the androgynous new coinages xe and hir…

It’s information overload out there. And many lawyers are seeing readership of their blogs, articles and newsletters dropping off. So, this week’s tip is to consider changing things up by adding video. How can you make that decision? Give some thought to the following questions:

1. Do you know where the surfers are? Youtube has surpassed Google for searches. That’s right… Google! There is no higher mountain. Enough said.

2. Does your target market watch video? It’s not just celebrity and cat videos that are making the rounds. Business executives are watching video. In fact, research shows 59% of …

Google Scholar is a useful way to start a search of academic literature, particularly for subject areas for which you have limited or no access to the relevant databases. Google Scholar has indexed an impressive number of academic articles; a 2014 study estimated that it contained just under 100 million English-language academic documents.

Google Scholar uses the same search syntax as Google. Searches can also be limited by author (e.g. Author:Tredwell), name of publication, and publication date. You can also limit search results to those that have links to the full text of the paper.

Although the majority of references …

You know how to plan effectively. Well, at least you have read dozens of articles on it, right? But you are alway too busy to do it. You promise yourself that as soon as things slow down, you will get right on that because its such a great idea. But either you never slow down or you go golfing instead. Either way, you end each working day in a panic, you go home exhausted with little to show for it, and whatever enthusiasm you have the next morning dissipates like political promises on E-day + 1.

The best solution is …

If you’re lucky, you’ll have marketing or communications folks who will prepare your piece for publication, but there are some design aspects you should be thinking about too.

White space
Dense blocks of text are hard on the eyes. Too many words will repel readers.

Think about breaking up long paragraphs and sentences so your piece is easier to read.

Headings and sub-headings
A useful way to impose order when you’re writing – and to guide the reader when the piece is published.

Block quotations
Avoid long quotations. As Matthew Butterick says in his illuminating book, Typography for Lawyers:…

A potential new client comes into your office and you can already tell you don’t like him. There’s something about the way he stands, the way he talks, his clothes, the scent of cologne wafting through the air. You can’t pin it down. but his very being puts you off. You’re not conceited – you figure he probably thinks exactly the same of you. At the same time, you know he has a big and interesting case, he can pay, and you want to win him over. What can you do?

Your first reaction may well be to differentiate yourself. …