SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS FOR THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENT University Extension Building C Room 112 Wednesdays

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SOFTWARE APPLICATIONSFOR THELEGAL
ENVIRONMENT University Extension Building
CRoom 112  Wednesdays 630 PM to 930 PM
April 1, 2009 through June 17, 2009  KATHY
MILLER, ACP, CASJON S. MONTGOMERY, CLA
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INTRODUCTION 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 1st

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COURSE TEXTBOOK PREREQUISITES

• Master Visually Office 2007 by Tom Bunzel
• Prerequisites
• It is expected that you have a basic knowledge of
  the personal computer as well as basic math
  skills
• This is a challenging course
• Significant time outside of the classroom is
  required to complete assignments
• You must have access to Office 2007 in order to
  do homework assignments.

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COURSE OBJECTIVES

•  1.     Have a basic knowledge needed to use a
  personal computer with confidence
• 2.      Demonstrate basic MS Windows Operating
  System functions
• 3.      Apply a working knowledge of Word 2007,
  Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Explorer, Outlook
  2007 and Adobe Professional to prepare documents
  for the legal environment

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COURSE OBJECTIVES

•  4.      Recall comparison of basic difference
  between Word and WordPerfect
• 5.      Give examples of basic computer
  applications used in a law firm or legal setting
  for litigation support, calendaring, basic
  Internet research, and electronic communications

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COURSE OBJECTIVES

•   6.      Give examples of ethical considerations
  for use of e-mail and Internet research
• 7.      Create Excel spreadsheets, Word documents
  and a PowerPoint presentation
• 8.      Give specific examples of how software is
  used in the legal environment

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Course Website

• www.parasale.net
• Class outlines
• Examples and practice files
• Links to additional resources
• Assignments
• Course policies and objectives

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Evaluation and Grading
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Grading 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

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Course 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!)

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Course 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.

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Course 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.

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Course Policies

• 630 - 745 Lecture/interactive
  presentation
• 745 - 800 Break
• 800 - 930 Lecture/interactive
  presentation continued
• Commence
  homework assignment

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Course Policies

• Office Hours
• Send e-mail to both Mr. Montgomery and Ms.
  Miller.
• Responses to messages/e-mail received during
  normal business hours will be sent within 24
  hours.

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Course Policies

• READING ASSIGNMENTS
• You must keep up with all reading assignments
• Reading assignments and class lectures may be the
  subject of POP QUIZZES at anytime
• A portion of your grade is class participation
  which includes how well you incorporate knowledge
  from outside readings and class lectures

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Course Policies

• PRINTING
• Assignments may be printed at your office, FedEx
  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 enough paper.

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Typical law office/corporate law department
computer software

• Word vs WordPerfect word processing

Access d base data base
Excel/QuatroPro/ Lotus
spreadsheet
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Typical 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)
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Typical law office/corporate law department
computer software

• Affirmative Action Plan affirmative action
  
  plan generator

Folio/Tvalue Title insurance /amortization
DocsOpen/SoftSolutions document management
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Typical 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
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Typical law office/corporate law department
computer software

• Carpe Diem/DTE Open timesheets

Live Notes
depositions
Concordance/Summation document management
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INTRODUCTION 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

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INTRODUCTION 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

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Internet 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.
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Web 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

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Search 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.

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Meta Search Engines / Indexes

• Indexes of or use of multiple Search Engines

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• On average, Americans experience "search rage" if
  they don't find what they want within 12
  minutes.WebTop Search Rage Study, August 2000

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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.

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Dot 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

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Microsoft Internet Explorer

• Title Bar
• Menu Bar
• Address Bar
• Scroll Bar
• Status Bar
• Navigation Bar
• Links Tool Bar

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Microsoft Internet Explorer

• Navigational Tools
• Back
• Forward
• Stop
• Refresh

• Home
• Search
• Favorites
• History

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Microsoft Internet Explorer

• Favorites
•  Add
•  Name of Site
• Make Available Offline
• Delete

• Organize
• Create Folder
• Rename
• Move to Folder
• Delete

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How 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)

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How to Search The WWW
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How to Search The WWW
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How 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.)

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How 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

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How 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
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How to Search The WWW

• Boolean query language and advanced search
  operators
• AND endangered species and tiger

endangered species 35,000
250
Tiger 5,000
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How to Search The WWW

• Pitfalls to avoid
• Avoid misspelling
• Query 712,815
• Querry 2,156
• Qerry 37
• Kwerrie 2

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How 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)

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Content 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?

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The 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

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POTPOURRI

• 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

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POTPOURRI

• 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.