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Welcome to JC Legal Assistance |
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Written by JC
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Sunday, 13 April 2008 |
The aim of this site is to provide legal professionals: paralegals, legal secretaries, and do-it-yourself attorneys with time saving tips and advice. Using technology, primarily the Microsoft Office Suite, I strive to shorten the time of tasks common to all law offices.
Using a format of short lessons, it may appear that some "tips" make little sense, have no benefit, or are just too simple to be of any value. However, they build upon one another as steps to a larger process that only becomes clear in the final product - hopefully a simpler way of doing something.
I hope this site helps make your work easier, and if you have the time, please send me your own advice so that I may benefit as well and pass it on to other readers.
The first string of lessons is a six part beginners series on automating letter creation in Microsoft Word and follows here:
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 12 August 2008 )
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Lesson 5: The Body, Part 1 |
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Written by James Crowley
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Wednesday, 04 June 2008 |
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 The body of the letter will be located in another file and imported. We do this by using bookmarks. The first step is to create a new document (body.doc is a good name) which contains all of the variable texts that we use in frequent letters. Cut and paste only the body of your letters and string them together in one long document separating them with a paragraph break. Use the same font style and size that you want in your final document. Do not use any formatting, such as indents:
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 12 August 2008 )
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Lesson 4: Closing The Letter |
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Written by James Crowley
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Sunday, 11 May 2008 |
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As with the salutation, the judge demands his own closing. Whereas we can close the majority of letters with a simple: "Sincerely", letters to the judge should concede more authority, such as: "Respectfully yours". Assuming you have followed the advice in "Addressing the Judge" and "Inserting the Blocks", we can programatically format the closing using the "Title" field. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 12 August 2008 )
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Written by James Crowley
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Saturday, 03 May 2008 |
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Inserting the date in a letter is just as easy as a couple of clicks. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 18 September 2008 )
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Lesson 2: Inserting the Blocks |
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Written by James Crowley
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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
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There are a number of ways to create a mail merge starting with a blank document. I begin by selecting Tools -> Letters and Mailings -> Mail Merge. This way two thing happen: the Mail Merge Task pane comes up and the Mail Merge Task Bar becomes available. Starting with the Mail Merge Pane, and going through the steps, we define the Type of document (Letters), the Starting document (Current), the recipient list (Outlook contacts), the Contacts Folder, and lastly the recipients (select only one for sample data). At this point the merge is made even though the document is blank. Save it as a Template with the .dot extension; we can now add some fields. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 12 August 2008 )
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Lesson 1: Addressing The Judge |
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Written by James Crowley
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Sunday, 13 April 2008 |
 When using the Outlook Address Book or Contacts in a document merge, for instance in an address block, then later in a salutation, judges - having two forms of "title", can pose a problem if you want to use only one template for all of your letters. A typical address block would include the person's full name then the salutation would include the title and last name. However, with judges we must first use the title "Honorable", then the title "Justice", to properly address the letter. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 12 August 2008 )
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