On a PC it is easy to grab an image of what is on your computer screen (aka a “screenshot”), just hit the dedicated PrintScreen key on your keyboard (sometimes abbreviated as Print Scrn, Prnt Scrn, Prt Scn, Prt Scr, Prt Sc or Pr Sc). Doing this places an image of your screen into the Clipboard. Pressing the Alt key with PrintScreen will put an image of just the active Window into the Clipboard. You can then paste (as in cut or copy and paste) that image into a document just as you would anything that is stored in the …

♫ Just a short note
You’ll find the key inside…♫

Music, lyrics and recorded by Matt Finish.

Having just returned from ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago my mind is buzzing with everything that I has seen and heard.  One of the more interesting sessions was on how to use Evernote (https://evernote.com).  Now I have been using Evernote for some time but it seems that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

I became curious about how to use Evernote to not just capture web sites, recipes, legal research and such, but to try to capture the tweets …

Yesterday at Slaw, I wrote about preparedness. Today’s Tip is to be perfectly prepared before you start your legal research question.  I think that there are two steps to perfect legal research preparedness. Please comment if you agree or disagree!

Preparedness Step 1 – Understand the question.

• put the question in context by review text books, loose-leaf services (or – my preference – eBooks that started out as loose-leaf services) and other secondary sources of words you should be using
• check for legislation by reviewing the footnotes of those secondary sources
• look for key cases referenced in those same footnotes

By default, Microsoft Excel gives your worksheets the rather bland names Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3 and so on. These default names do nothing to help you remember what is in each worksheet, especially if you come back to work on a workbook many days, weeks or months later.

There are a number of helpful things you can do to tweak and change worksheet tabs in ways that will help you find and remember what you have in a workbook. They include:

• Giving the tab a new name that describes the contents: To do this, double-click on a tab; or right-click on

I remember the time that a favourite client of mine gave me a schooling in the art of legal writing – and proofreading.

A retired lawyer (and the consummate gentleman), he had retained me to draft revisions to a fairly complex Last Will and Testament.

He was a bit of a stickler. And I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to have worked with him. Because even though my content was fine, he still had lots to say about the way my draft was set up.

Here, in a nutshell, is what I learned from him.

Precision and consistency in …

I was reminded that sometimes you can find a decent review of the history of a piece of legisaltion within written decisions.  For instance, a discussion of the Election Act for Alberta was published in Engel v Alberta (Executive Council), 2015 ABQB 226 and includes a bit of legislative history.…

♫  What’s left to lose?
I painted all these pictures but you couldn’t choose,
All of your company.
But is this distance, calling my name?
I think persistence is this price that we pay in the end…♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by State Champs.

This is an image taken from a YouTube marketing video created by a  Pittsburgh lawyer named Daniel Muessig.  This particular video has been described as “clever, effective, legally ethical and thoroughly despicable” by ethicsalarms.com.  They state:

Is this an ethical ad? According to the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct, it is within the conduct permitted

Today’s Tip is about interacting with your research world.

We are involved in an increasingly complex universe of data that has increasingly complex functionality.  In order to get the most out of what is in front of you I suggest that you engage with the data.  Mouse over text and images; set your browser status bar to visible so that you can read the URLs that hyperlinks will send you to; watch for functionality hint pop up text; in short – interact.

The print version of this is following the footnotes, index, table of contents, table of cases or statutes, …

I shoulda been in Jamaica, this week.

For a variety of scheduling reasons, mostly my significant other’s, that didn’t work out as planned. Which is not the end of the world, particularly with temperatures hitting 15 degrees in Toronto today.

(It’s 28 in Runaway Bay, Jamaica though, as we speak).

But today’s tip is not about the thermometer. Rather it’s about the “stay-cation.”

My week was booked off for vacation and I decided to keep it that way. The order of events for the week, I prognosticated, would be:

1. Catch up with my emails

2. Relax.

Four days later, …

Yesterday at Slaw, I posted about the Alberta Law Reform Institute Final Report 106 Assisted Reproduction After Death: Parentage and Implications.

Today’s Tip is a reminder to look to law commission reports when researching items that touch on public policy.  As Michel-Adrien Sheppard wrote in a 2013 Slaw post, these reports have hidden treasures:

There is always a chance that a law commission has looked at a legal issue you may be working on. Slaw.ca collaborator Ted Tjaden has a section on how to find law reform commission reports on his legal research writing website.