Working with PDFs

GoodReader lets you view and annotate PDF files on your iPad. You can connect it to document management systems like OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive and Box so that you can sync the documents you need to be able to access from anywhere.

Macro (formerly CoParse) is a brilliant tool for breaking down big PDF documents. You can click on any section or defined term to have it appear in a pop up box so you can see the context while you read the document. It will also handle comparisions of multiple PDFs and detect errors like missing definitions.

Working with Word

The Effectiveness Project offers document competency best practice guides which link to instructions on common functionality for working with legal documents.

Wordrake offers a series of free training videos for functions that are often underused like track changes, compare, automated numbering and styles.

Project management

I'm a big fan of Trello for keeping track of projects where many people are working on different tasks.  You can keep track of progress, set due dates for tasks, get notified by email when tasks are completed and reassign tasks if there is a roadblock or change in priority.   But it is not perfect and this is a good summary of the alternatives. 

This is a good quick overview of agile project management methodology and an explanation of the scrum and kanban frameworks.  In the legal context, G+T and Accenture published a best practice guide to going agile. Seyfarth Shaw published a description of how they use agile project management.

Some examples of people using agile in legal services include:

• busy in-house counsel using an "agile" wall to triage and delegate jobs

• Lonely planet's in-house legal team

SMS messages and chats

If your clients are contacting you by text message, What’s app and direct messages (DMs) in your social media channels, you need to capture those communications and save them on your file. Taking a screenshot is fine for one off but if this is a constant issue, there are tools can can help capture them in bulk.

Export SMS, iMessage and WhatsApp chats from iPhone with iMazing or Touch copy.

Export SMS and MMS from Android phones with Droid Transfer.

Microsoft Phone Link enables you to send and receive text messages on your PC (requires Windows 11 for iPhone)

Send and receive SMS messages from your email using SMS Broadcast

To download text messages from an Android phone you can use Legal Text Collector app (free to preview, one time purchase to use the share feature)

Writing

More than a spellcheck, Hemingway app takes any piece of text and makes suggestions to make it clearer, less full of jargon and easier to read.  There is also a plug-in for Microsoft office and outlook called Wordrake which does the same thing.  Wordrake is available for a free trial.

Use the readability statistics in Word to check whether your writing is clear and consise.

Read Writing at Work by Neil James for practical guidance on making your writing more effective.

US based Ken Adams wrote A manual of style for Contract Drafting which is an in-depth survey of the building blocks of contract language.

Dictation

Dictation is 3x faster than typing, so even if you are used to typing, it is worth giving dictation a try. You no longer have to send work away to be typed, you can dictate right onto the screen and edit straight away.

Dragon dictation will enable you to dictate and have your document appear right on the screen.  It works on all programs, you can even dictate your itemised time entries.  If you tried voice recognition a few years ago and were not impressed, it is worth trying it out again.

Dictate is included in Microsoft 365 and you can use it to dictate by speaking to any device with a microphone - your laptop, your phone or your tablet. You can use it in Word, Outlook, OneNote and PowerPoint. If you don’t have a microphone you will need a headset or connected earphones. There is no set up and the accurately is good enough to be useful. You can’t train it or give complex instructions, but it is an excellent way to give dictation a try.

Otter.ai uses AI and machine learning to transcribe voice conversations in real time.

Rev offers transcription of audio and video. It also offers captioning and subtitling video services. You can chose digital transcription or to have the transcription performed by a human.

Referencing

You can mark up text, like case names and citations, in your Word document to create a short and long form citation. You can create a list of authorities in your document. This can be a good solution if you aren’t dealing with too many authorities. Instructions are here.

Quillbot citation generator is a free tool that will reference sources on websites, books and journal articles. It is easy to use.

Cite this for me is another free tool that will create references for various source types and produce them in different styles. The free account will store references for only 7 days.

Electronic bundles

If you are sending large documents by email, or in paper, you should assess whether this is the best practice. Using electronic portals is more secure than email and enables the quick transmission of large volumes without needing to seperate into many files (which can easily create errors). There are a number of good solutions that allow you to easy collate a PDF bundle. If the files are appropriately named, the bundle can be quickly paginated, bookmarked and a hyperlinked index created automatically.

These are some of the options - check which ones integrate with your document management system and meet your budget.

Acrobat Pro DC allows you to combine documents into a single pdf file. You can organise the order of the documents but the functionality is basic and not as flexible as some of the other tools. For beginners this video demonstrates of how to combine a number of different documents saved in a folder in Windows into a single pdf file, paginate the brief and create hyperlinks to documents in the bundle.

Bundledocs does one thing but does it really well. It makes it easy to create electronic bundles, briefs or document binders from your document management system or electronic folders. You have flexibility around the formating of numbering, indexing and sections. You can save, share or print the completed bundle.

eBrief ready enables you to create a court bundle with automatic compilation, indexing and numbering of document bundles for briefs, tender bundles and court books. It allows its users to annotate directly on documents and search for information instantly — on any device, in any location. Your eBriefs are all hosted on Australian servers, boasting enterprise-grade security and encryption. You can share a bundle with anyone, they do not need to be a subscriber.

pdfDocs enables you to automate the conversion and assembly of documents into a PDF binder, generating an interactive Table of Contents, bookmarks, and links for easy navigation. 

Check what your practice management software can do. For instance, Smokeball offers the ability to combine multiple files within a matter into one PDF and automatically add pagination, bookmarks and a table of contents. Practice Evolve also has a brief editor function.

clausebanks

An increasing number of tools offer sophisticated clausebank functionality - either as a stand alone tool or as part of a document automation tool.

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