Title: SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS FOR THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENT University Extension Building A Room 201 Wednesdays
1SOFTWARE APPLICATIONSFOR THELEGAL
ENVIRONMENT University Extension Building
ARoom 201 Wednesdays 630 PM to 930 PM
April 2nd, 2007 through June 18th KATHY
MILLER, ACP, CASJON S. MONTGOMERY, CLA
2INTRODUCTION AND COURSE OVERVIEW
- Introduction of instructors
- Kathy Miller, ACP, CASkhmiller_at_fedex.com
- Jon S. Montgomery, CLAjonmontgomery_at_paulhastings.
com - Students
- Class Survey - due April 2nd
-
3COURSE OBJECTIVES
- Have a basic knowledge needed to use a personal
computer with confidence - Demonstrate basic MS Windows Operating System
functions - Apply a working knowledge of Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, Access, Explorer, Outlook, Adobe to
prepare documents for the legal environment - Recall comparison of basic difference between
Word and WordPerfect
4COURSE OBJECTIVES
- Give examples of basic computer applications used
in a law firm or legal setting for litigation
support, calendaring and electronic
communications - Give examples of ethical considerations for use
of e-mail and Internet use - Create Excel spreadsheets
- Use Internet for legal and factual research
- Give specific examples of how software is used in
the legal environment
5Administrative Matters
- Course Text
- Master Visually Office 2003by Michael S. Toot
- Course website
- www.parasale.net
- Class outlines
- Examples and practice files
- Links to additional resources
- Assignments
- Course policies and objectives
6Evaluation and Grading
7Grading Scale
- A 98 100
- A 94 97
- A- 90 93
- B 87 - 89
- B 83 - 86
- B- 80 - 82
- C 77 - 79
- C 73 - 76
- C- 70 - 72
- D 65 - 70
- F BELOW 65
8Course Policies
- What We Expect from You
- Be here. Be on time. Class attendance is not
optional. - Participate! We expect you to keep up in class,
not being disruptive, hold questions not on point
to the end of class, arrive on time, and do not
leave until after the homework assignment is
given. DO NOT SURF THE INTERNET DURING CLASS - Turn in everything on time. An assignment is late
if we dont have it by the beginning of the class
period on the due date. Period. No exceptions.
Really. We mean it. - Late paper penalty is one full letter grade off
for every day its late. (Day is defined as 24
hours!)
9Course Policies
- What You Should Expect from Us
- Clarity. We will try to make course and
assignment expectations as clear as possible. If
you dont understand requirements or concepts
ask one of us. - Relevance. Weve never had patience with busy
work, so we will not ask you to do any. Each
assignment is geared to prepare you for some
aspect of the use of computer software in the
legal setting. If you dont understand why youre
doing an assignment ask us.
10Course Policies
- Assignment Submission Guidelines
- Hard Copy and Disk. Assignments are due at the
beginning of class in hard copy and on 3.5 inch
high density disk or CD. Please be sure your
files are on the disk as assignments with out a
disk with the homework files on it cannot be
accepted. - Electronic copy. You may submit assignments via
email to our e-mail address at your own peril.
Your assignment is not received when sent it is
received when we actually get it.
11Course Policies
- For Thursday Sessions
- 630 - 745 Lecture/interactive
presentation - 745 - 800 Break
- 800 - 930 Lecture/interactive
presentation continued
and commence homework
assignment
12Course Policies
- Office Hours
- Preferred method send e-mail to both Mr.
Montgomery and Ms. Miller. - Responses to messages and e-mail received during
normal business hours will be sent within 24
hours.
13Course Policies
- READING ASSIGNMENTS
- YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR KEEPING UP WITH ALL
READING ASSIGNMENTS. THE MATERIAL COVERED IN THE
TEXT AND IN YOUR CLASS BINDERS AS WELL AS CLASS
LECTURES AND DEMONSTRATIONS MAY BE THE SUBJECT OF
POP QUIZZES AT ANYTIME DURING THE TERM. A
PORTION OF YOUR GRADE IS RELATED TO CLASS
PARTICIPATION WHICH INCLUDES HOW WELL YOU
INCORPORATE KNOWLEDGE OF THE READING ASSIGNMENTS
DURING CLASS DISCUSSIONS.
14Course Policies
- Printing
- Assignments may be printed at your office,
Kinkos or other similar facility. - You may print to the printer in the back of the
class room for free, but dont assume that the
printer has paper.
15Typical law office/corporate law department
computer software
- Word vs WordPerfect word processing
Access d base data base
Excel/QuatroPro/ Lotus
spreadsheet
16Typical law office/corporate law department
computer software
- PowerPoint/Presentations presentations
Harvard Graphics
trial exhibits
Tax/Estate Planning
Fiduciary Accounting Trust And
Estates (FATE) Federal Estate Tax
(FET)
17Typical law office/corporate law department
computer software
- Affirmative Action Plan affirmative action
plan generator
Folio/Tvalue Title insurance /amortization
DocsOpen/SoftSolutions document management
18Typical law office/corporate law department
computer software
- Legal Solutions forms preparation
Outlook/GroupWise/ Lotus
Notes e-mail/calendar/Rolodex
Netscape/Explorer Internet browsers
Lexis/West Law legal
research
19Typical law office/corporate law department
computer software
- Carpe Diem/DTE Open timesheets
Live Notes
depositions
Concordance/Summation document management
20INTRODUCTION TO THE INTERNET AND WWW
- OBJECTIVES
- Use IE to search the Internet
- Add, organize and delete favorites
- Print and download files from the Internet
- Recall Internet sites for legal use
transactional and litigation - Recall definitions of Internet vocabulary
21INTRODUCTION TO THE INTERNET AND WWW
- Why cover the internet in Software Applications?
- You use software to use the internet.
- Paralegals use the internet for legal and factual
research. - Research classes cover primarily cover legal
research. - Paralegals need to know how to incorporate
internet information into their work product. - Our class has a website www.parasale.net
22Internet Service Providers
- Internet Service Providers (ISP) -- A company or
institution that provides access to the Internet
in some form, usually for money. This is your
connection to the Internet.
Online Connection -Comparison of major US
Internet service providers presents details about
connection speeds, prices, software used,
features and support.
23Web Browsers
- Web Browsers - Short for Web Browser it's the
tool (program) that allows you to surf the web.
The most popular Web Browsers right now are
Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer.MSN
ExplorerNetscapeOperaMozilla
24Search Engines
- Search Engines - It is one thing to have
information you want to share with the Internet
community and quite another to let the worlds
users know where to find it. Many types and
styles of search engines exist some permit
comprehensive keyword searches others list site
by topic. Some automatically snoop all known
servers on the Internet for interesting content.
25Meta Search Engines / Indexes
- Indexes of or use of multiple Search Engines
26 - On average, Americans experience "search rage" if
they don't find what they want within 12
minutes.WebTop Search Rage Study, August 2000
27 The Duke of URL
- The Duke of URL - (Uniform Resource Locator) --
The standard way to give the address of any
resource on the Internet that is part of the
World Wide Web (WWW). It usually begins with
"http//" A URL looks like thishttp//www.mat
isse.net/seminars.htmltelnet//well.sf.ca.usnews
new.newusers.questions The most common way to
use a URL is to enter into a WWW browser program,
such as Netscape, or Explorer.
28Dot What?
- .com Commercial
- www.pepsi.com (Pepsi cola)
- .gov Government
- www.ftc.gov (Federal Trade Commission)
- .mil Military
- www.defenselink.mil (US Department of Defense)
- .org Organizations
- www.nala.org (National Association of Legal
Assistants) - .edu Educational Institutions
- http//unex.uci.edu
- .net Net Service Providers
- _at_cox.net
29Microsoft Internet Explorer
- Title Bar
- Menu Bar
- Address Bar
- Scroll Bar
- Status Bar
- Navigation Bar
- Links Tool Bar
30Microsoft Internet Explorer
- Navigational Tool Bar
- Back
- Forward
- Stop
- Refresh
- Home
- Search
- Favorites
- History
31Microsoft Internet Explorer
- Favorites
- Add
- Name of Site
- Make Available Offline
- Delete
- Organize
- Create Folder
- Rename
- Move to Folder
- Delete
32How to Search The WWW
- Visible or Invisible Internet (Deep Web)
- Address Bar Search - URL
- www.caparalegal.org
- Address Bar - site name
- California Alliance of Paralegal Associations
- Search Engines / Indexes key words
- Paralegal
- Boolean query language
- (and, or, not)
33How to Search The WWW
34How to Search The WWW
35How to Search The WWW
- Boolean query language and advanced search
operators - Quotes ( ) putting quotes around a set of
words will only find results that exactly match
the words in that exact sequence. - Wildcard Use () attaching an to the right
hand side of a word will return partial matches
to that word (i.e. word returns results that
include word, words, worded etc.)
36How to Search The WWW
- Boolean query language and advanced search
operators - Using Plus () attaching a in front of a word
requires that the word be found in every one of
the search results - Using Minus (-) attaching a in front of a
word requires that the word not be found in any
of the search results
37How to Search The WWW
- Boolean query language and advanced search
operators - OR (endangered species or tiger) lists content
with either word in it
- Endangered
- Species
- 35,500
Endangered Species, Tiger 41,000
Tiger 5,500
38How to Search The WWW
- Boolean query language and advanced search
operators - AND endangered species and tiger
-
endangered species 35,000
250
Tiger 5,000
39How to Search The WWW
- Pitfalls to avoid
- Avoid misspelling
- Query 712,815
- Querry 2,156
- Qerry 37
- Kwerrie 2
40How to Search The WWW
- Pitfalls to avoid
- Avoid using redundant terms (ask Is this term
covered by another term? If so delete the
redundant term.) - Avoid ignored characters (i.e. ! )
- Use alternate spellings when necessary(i.e.
color/colour, organize/organise,
behavior/behaviour) (50 countries use traditional
UK English spellings and not US spelling of
words) - Avoid using too many terms (use only 6 to 8 terms
with high numbers of search terms search engine
behavior becomes erratic)
41Content Evaluation
- Why do you need to evaluate content?
- Who put it on the web?
- Quality
- Age of content
- How to evaluate web content.
- Look at the URL (www.whitehouse.gov /
www.whitehouse.org ) - Who wrote the page?
- When was it last updated? (File Properties)
- Use _at_Alexa to find out more
- http//www.alexa.com/
- Why was the page put on the web?
42The Best Paralegal Websites
- Litigation
- Court Sites
- Finding Witnesses and Experts
- Arbitration/Mediation
- California Laws, Rules and Regulations
- Forms
- Transactional
- Cities and Counties
- State and Federal Agencies
- Financial Information
- Free Public Records
- Forms
43POTPOURRI
- Google Features www.google.com
- Language Translation
- Images
- Search Engine Comparisons and Infowww.infopeople.
org/search/chart.html www.searchenginewatch.com - Index or search engines from around the world
www.searchenginecolossus.com
44POTPOURRI
- To help your writing
- www.acronymfinder.com Finds Acronyms
- www.onelook.com Results from 100 Dictionaries
- http//www.m-w.com/ - Merriam Webster Dictionary
- http//www.powa.org/ - Online writing assistant
- http//www.nutsandboltsguide.com/ - College
Writing Asst.
45POTPOURRI
- Special Searches
- www.whois.org
- www.archive.org (Wayback Machine)
- Windows OS Help
- www.annoyances.org