Small ideas on legal practice, research and technology

Refine Your Writing With WordRake

♫  Good lookin’, so refined
Say wouldn’t you like to know whats going on in my mind?
So let me get right to the point
I don’t pop my cork for every guy I see
Hey Big Spender
Spend, a little time with me…♫

Music and lyrics by:  Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields, from Sweet Charity.

This column starts what I hope will be a series of columns on new and innovative technologies for lawyers.

The kickoff column in this series deals with WordRake.

WordRake is editing software for lawyers.

Most of us have to write for a …

Posted in: Practice

Don’t Assume Too Much

A post from the daily blog from Harvard Law Schools Program on Negotiation offer this advice regarding when negotiators assume too much:

One pitfall is that decision makers often overlook others’ viewpoints. When we do take others’ thinking into account, we tend to assume that they know as much as we do. For this reason, marketing experts are generally worse than non-expert consumers at predicting the beliefs, values, and tastes of consumers.

Similarly, individuals who correctly solve a problem overestimate the percentage of their peers who will be just as successful solving the same problem .

This advice resonates for …

Posted in: Research & Writing

Stop Inappropriate Gmail Messages From Going Out With Undo Send

Many of us have sent angry or nasty comments in a Gmail email, only to regret it moments after hitting Send – or you remember that you didn’t attach the attachment you referenced in the email (hate with that happens!). If you have ever found yourself in either of these situations, rejoice, because Gmail’s Undo Send feature will help prevent them from happening again.
This handy feature delays the sending of your messages by 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds, thereby giving you a small window during which you can hit an “undo” button to prevent your message from going …

Posted in: Technology

Migrating From Windows Live Mail to MS-Outlook

 

Which email client does your law office use?

I raise this question, as the purchase of a new computer for my desktop has necessitated the migration of all my emails – around 20 Gigs worth – to my new machine.

Out of habit, if nothing else, we have used Windows Live Mail as my office’s email client of choice.

While I suspect MS-Outlook has long been most lawyers’ preferred email software, I was always fond of Outlook Express, the predecessor to Windows Live Mail. When OE was discontinued, we migrated to Windows Live Mail as the path of least …

Posted in: Practice

Ask Directions

I’ve been travelling in the Maritime this pas week. Like many places, if you are unfamiliar with the particulars of a place, sometimes signs make absolutely no sense.  For instance, the subtle differences in Sydney River, North Sydney, Sydney Mines and Sydney can be just a bit confusing when viewing a map that shows New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, and Quebec.

One of the best ways to navigate is to ask directions. It helps put the scale and scope into proper perspective.

This works for legal research too.

Happy travels.…

Posted in: Research & Writing

On iPad/iPhone Turn Caps Lock on With a Double-Tap on Either Shift Key

iPads and iPhones have a Shift key, which is handy when you need to type a capital letter. But what if you want to type something in all caps? Pressing Shift for each letter is a pain. No worries though, a simple double-tap on either Shift key will lock them down so you will get all caps as you type. Just tap either Shift key again to turn all caps off.…

Posted in: Technology

Fitbit Is Here!

♫ wheeeeeeeeeefit
whoafit
holy$#*!fit
findyourfit..♫

Lyrics and music by Seth Olinsky (Akron/Family).

Who knew that keeping track of your fitness could be addictive – and fun? Welcome to the world of wearable technology and in particular, the Fitbit.

The FitBit Flex is a wearable fitness wristband that helps you track your daily activity in terms of steps, distance, calories burned and active minutes.

It tracks how long you slept and the quality of your sleep. It buzzes when you have achieved 10,000 steps in a day (the first time mine did this I almost jumped out of my …

Posted in: Practice

Lawyer CPD Credits

Today’s Tip, with thanks to Michel-Adrien Sheppard for the idea, is a reminder to lawyers looking for CPD opportunities to look to law librarians.  We can help with identifying interesting opportunities that cross our desks via publishers blurbs, calls for conference papers, media and social media monitoring.  In addition to those indirect, guide on the side types of aid, we are also offering CPD credits to lawyers at OUR educational conferences.

The final Keynote Session at the recently concluded Canadian Association of Law Libraries Conference was an address on cyberbullying by Wayne Mackay.  An excellent discussion with lot’s of additional  …

Posted in: Research & Writing

Remove the Background of a Picture or Clipart in PowerPoint, Word or Excel

When adding a picture or clipart to your PowerPoint or Word document, you may run into a situation where you don’t want its background to appear. This happens most frequently to me when I place a logo or symbol onto a PowerPoint slide and its background is a different colour than the background of the slide.
There is no need for a fancy photo editing tool like Photoshop. In Word, PowerPoint and Excel 2010 and later versions you can use the Background Removal tool to easily remove a background from a picture. (Older versions of Office may have the more …

Posted in: Technology

Mobilegeddon: Is Your Law Firm Website Ready to Pass Google’s New Mobile-Friendliness Test?

Some call it Mobilegeddon.

Google began to roll out a mobile-friendliness update last Tuesday, April 21, 2015.  With this latest, major algorithmic change, Google will now be boosting search rankings of mobile-friendly web pages on its mobile search results.

According to Google:

A page is eligible for the “mobile-friendly” label if it meets the following criteria as detected by Googlebot:

  • Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash
  • Uses text that is readable without zooming
  • Sizes content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom
  • Places links far enough apart so
Posted in: Practice