Law: A Language All Our Own

This is extremely helpful for me in every area of my work. However, let me share some things that only legal professionals can relate to. Instead of having to insert the § symbol, I just type ,ss and then (you guessed it) -buloop! It’s there in all it’s statutory glory.

Instead of typing out the entire address of each court, I just type .ctcoking and the address for the King County Courthouse populates. If I want to type the address for Pierce County’s courthouse, I just type .ctcopierce. These are the abbreviations I have assigned so they are easy to remember for me. 

Easy Firm Wide Consistency

I could share these abbreviations with you easily if we were on the same TextExpander team plan. This has revolutionized things for the newbies we work with. Most of us would stare at the word praecipe five hundred times to make sure we spelled it right when we first entered the field.

Many of the words we type daily are not recognized by spellcheck, but if you regularly misspell praecipe like I used to, you can add the misspelling to your TextExpander so that it will autocorrect when entered incorrectly.

This can also go along way to keep peace among paralegals and attorneys. If your attorney is irked by your overuse of a certain word, for example, one of my favorites “however.” However, using it is such a habit for you. You could tell TextExpander to replace it with a synonym that your attorney is yet to tire of like “moreover.” The possibilities are really endless.

Judge Whatchyamacallit

TextExpander helps with names too. I don’t know how many clients and judges names I have butchered over the years, but that problem is in the past. As soon as I see I am having difficulty regularly spelling a name, I add the mispronunciation or a snippet, like .judgew, to TextExpander. Then every time I am drafting a proposed order for that one judge whose last name contains about 17 syllables, I type my snippet and the judge’s name appears perfectly spelled. Then when you hire a new legal professional, you can share these shortcuts easily in TextExpander. 

Did you read that last sentence? That is really powerful. When you are adding staff and moving staff around, it is important to be consistent. But what TextExpander also does is eliminates a lot of menial time-sucking training and corrections that come along with entry-level legal professionals.

Attorney-Approved Pre-Formatted Legal Advice & Education

I personally feel the best way TextExpander helps me is when I am drafting correspondence to clients. I constantly have to repeat myself to different clients but may not have an actual form letter that is applicable. This eliminates the need for form letters, which can often look like form letters, and lets you get back to personalized letters.

This is SOOOOO nice for us paralegals and attorneys alike. Now your attorneys can have complete control and consistency when it comes to relating advice on certain issues. Creating these snippets with your attorneys ensures you are confident in your paralegal skills, the client stays well-informed and the attorney knows exactly what is being communicated by the paralegals.

This is why I call it a MUST tool for attorneys, paralegals and legal professionals dedicated to high moral ethics by avoiding any appearance of Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL).