Building personal capital: Think like a lawyer

But don’t think like just any lawyer; think like your boss.

In my ongoing, ever-evolving, semi-regular series on building personal capital, I’m considering of one of the most effective ways to build lawyer

Building personal capital, part 2: Think first, and ask questions later

Sometimes I get discouraged at work, and I feel as if I’m being paid not to think. Mostly, this happens when I try to correct a lawyer’s grammar and get smacked down for my efforts. But

Building personal capital, part 1: Mea culpa

Personal capital is a term I came up with recently for something I’ve never gotten around to putting a name to before. I might well have heard that term someplace and forgotten, because Google assures me

How to Vet an Expert

The Virtual Chase offers this Robert Ambrogi article on vetting your expert. The best part is, many of the sources Ambrogi recommends are free, so legal secretaries can easily do this research for

Mastering Google, 20 tips for more efficient Google searches

Speaking of Google, check out productivity blog Dumb Little Man for 20 tips for more efficient Google searches. The list includes a few that I already knew about, but several

Laws and legislation in plain English

The latest new legal Web site is one I’m sure most lawyers will spurn as being beneath them. But since my blog isn’t for lawyers, I thought I’d mention the new site anyway.

Microsoft Word: Goof-Proof and simplify complex documents in two easy steps

Have you ever re-checked your table of contents page numbers, table of authorities page numbers, or cross-references in a complex Word document, only to find they weren’t quite right? One page number off here, a cross-reference

The Legal Secretary’s Twelve-Step Recovery Program

1. We admitted we were legal secretaries — that our lives (a third of them, a least) were completely dominated by the whims of lawyers.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could make us stop seeing…

Particle Emission Characteristics of Office Printers

I’ve located a free download of the laser printer article

ACS Publications:  Particle Emission Characteristics of Office Printers

Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the chart that shows the HP, Ricoh, Mita,

Adobe Acrobat: 30 Tips and Tricks

The Acrobat for Legal Professionals blog offers a download — in PDF form, of course — of 30 Dirty Tricks for Acrobat 8. The tips, which were developed for a recent seminar, include such…

How do lawyers stay organized?

A recent ABA Journal E-report Answers of the Week” features organizational suggestions solicited from and submitted by its attorney readers. Among the predictable suggestions are things like ring binders (although no mention of

MS Outlook Drag and Drop files like PDF, Word documents, text files, tiffs, and even URLs

Apologies if everyone but me already knew this, but I just had to share.

I recently discovered that I can drag and drop just about anything into my Outlook mail folders.

I used to regularly scan

Sending the wrong email message (thanks, AutoComplete)

Admit it. At some point, you have sent an e-mail to the wrong recipient. You sent a copy of an order to Joe Rosencrantz rather than Joe Guildenstern. Another gotcha!, courtesy of AutoComplete.

Jennifer J. Rose (sorry, only e. e.…

Google Services and all things Google

Lifehacker recently posted a link to this nifty 2-page, PDF cheat sheet on all things Google. In addition to links to all of Google’s services and sample Google calculator commands, there’s a list of the important people…

Instead of using the copy machine, scan to PDF and email it

By simply scanning all incoming items to PDF and e-mail them to the attorney you can reduce paper, find documents easily in digital format and save room on filing. If you work for a large or medium firm, you probably have technology already in place that makes scanning as easy as — or easier than — making paper copies. You might even be scanning everything for storage in an electronic database, and, if you have cases in federal court, you probably already receive court filings in PDF format.

Research: Harness the power of Google

A new Law.com article discusses some of Google’s advanced search features, as well as how to assess the reliability of a Web site. Learn how to fine-tune your searches using

Make the most of Microsoft Outlook

If you a fan of microsoft outlook these 8 tips will server you well, especially if your on email every day and would like to do things more efficiently.

Some of the Outlook tips include – Set Reminders to Act on Messages, using advanced find, adding contacts from and email etc.

Keyboard shortcuts galore

KeyXL.com offers handy keyboard shortcut lists for popular platforms and applications. Search (or surf the menus) for the application you’re using, and you’ll probably find it. The entire MS Office Suite is there, although WordPerfect isn’t. The site says to check back regularly,…

Stephen Colbert on e-mail etiquette

Lifehacker features this clip from the Colbert Report featuring e-mail etiquette author Will Schwalbe. In his usual fine form, Mr. Colbert expounds on his love of all caps and decries those e-mails that

Share word processing documents across applications

Need to share that Word document with a WordPerfect user? Never fear: Rich Text Format is here.

While it is possible to open a Word document in WordPerfect or vice versa, most people

Streamline your work processes with technology and break free of unnecessary work

When I started my current job a few years back, I was apprehensive about the workload. I knew the previous legal secretary had requested a transfer within the firm because she felt overwhelmed. And, when I

Docketing with Outlook 2003 part 2: Let Microsoft Outlook calculate dates for you

Part 2 of a 2 part post, “Docketing with Outlook 2003″ this simple tutorial shows you how you can use the power of outlook to calculate legal dates for you. This is one every paralegal, legal secretary or legal assistant should know about for docketing.

Creating an electronic transparent signature stamp for PDFs and e-filing

Does your attorney insist that pleadings be scanned in for e-filing rather than printed directly as PDFs, just so her real signature can appear, rather than “/s/”? We know that for e-filed documents, the attorney’s login

Bates numbering and appendix numbering – Adobe Acrobat Standard

I don’t like those outside copy service reps. In my book, they rank about half a rung above used car salesmen. They dress too well for copy guys, their hair is too slick, and they bring

MS Word tip: Change the case of your text without re-typing

You really can capitalize — or de-capitalize — blocks of text at once with MS Word. Simply select the desired text and click Format, Change case. A small popup window will offer radio-button selections