[Updated ebook] The top reasons court filings get rejected
Receiving notification that your court filing has been rejected by the clerks can be seriously frustrating. In terms of time, cost, and risk to your professional reputation we’re sure it’s an annoyance you could do without. It happens, though. And, as the courts in more and more states move to implement electronic filing — with […]
Cyber security for the law firm: top blogs, books, and resources
There’s a lot of information out there about how to protect yourself against cybercrime. It’s of varying degrees of quality, however. Much of it is also only of partial relevance to the legal profession. In other words, getting to the information you need can be tough. That’s why we’ve written this concise list of the […]
How to use Word’s readability stats to improve your legal writing
It’s generally accepted that good legal writing is concise writing. It’s not always easy, though. It’s especially difficult in the legal field, where simplicity can get lost in an ocean of impenetrable jargon, superfluous triplicate phrases, and never-ending sentences. The result is often writing that’s hard work to read or even completely unreadable, even by […]
What are the main cyber security threats for law firms?
Law firms are big targets for cyber criminals. The sheer volume of sensitive and confidential data held on law firm computers and servers makes them an enticing target for budding cybercriminals. The consequences of a serious data breach extend far beyond just embarrassment — lose a client’s data to cybercrime attack, and you could be […]
5 legal trends to start preparing for in 2017
As we begin the new year’s first full week of work, it’s the perfect time to look ahead and review what’s in store for 2017. Okay, so it’s well known that technological advancement in the legal professions can sometimes be slow. Therefore, many of these trends have been in the works for years and perhaps […]
Top best practices for exhibit scanning
It’s a near certainty that, no matter how hard you strive for your office to be paperless, you will find that you need to scan items such as incoming correspondence, signatures pages, and exhibits. As the items that often have the most detail, it’s important to learn the best practices for exhibit scanning as one […]
How to create a secure password
Most people, legal professionals included, make up terrible passwords. We know this because, after major hacks of big name websites, details of the passwords used are often revealed to the public. After one such hack, it was revealed that the most common three passwords were “123456,” “password,” and “12345678.” It’s okay, though. It’s not as […]
New eFiling formatting rules in California: What you need to know
Following a series of recently announced changes to the California Rules of Court you may soon need to change how you’re preparing documents to adhere to new eFiling formatting rules. In October, the Judicial Council of California published several rule changes and amendments to come into effect on January 1, 2017. Several relate to the […]
How to correct OCR errors using Adobe Acrobat
Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to just OCR, is the process of converting image files containing letters and words (such as scans or photographs) into searchable, text-based documents. Now that the eFiling rules in many states, for example in California and Texas, require that electronically filed submissions (including exhibits) be text searchable, it’s important to […]
How to make a PDF text searchable
It’s long been best practice to ensure that the PDF documents you file electronically with the court are text searchable. That’s because one can navigate searchable documents by looking up specific words and phrases, add markup (like comments) to specific sections, and copy and paste individual blocks of text. The result is a much more […]
How to correctly redact a PDF using Adobe Acrobat
Redaction — the permanent deletion of data from documents — used to be really simple. In the past, thick permanent marker pens were used to black out the information. These days, especially now that eFiling means that many documents need never be printed out, that process doesn’t make sense. It is slow, inefficient, and unnecessarily […]
5 time-saving tools and services all law firms need to know about
Do your days feel like they’re whizzing past, leaving you with little more than a much longer to-do list? In busy, always-on-the-go professions like the law, it can often feel like there’s no let-up. However, there are legal professionals out there who have unlocked the secrets of productivity and time management. We all know them […]
5 quick tips for educating your office about cyber security
When it comes to learning about cyber security, the first thing you notice is that there are a lot of threats out there. Sometimes the tools you use will be to blame. Other times (some might even say most times) it is down to human error. In other words, it’s you. In fact, of the […]
5 steps to getting serious about law firm cyber security
Law firms have a clear duty of care with respect to the sensitive information they hold about their clients and the matters they’re working on. Last week, as part of our contribution to Cyber Security Awareness Month, we wrote about the seriousness of the cybercrime threat facing law firms. In particular, we noted that one […]
Why all law firms need to worry about cyber attacks
Cyber attacks have been in the news a lot lately, with data breaches at major companies and tales of hacked emails regularly featuring on the nightly news. The simple fact is that cyber crime is on a sharp rise. This increase matters for legal professionals because law firms are very often the guardians of oodles […]
Why you need to remove metadata from your court filings
Consider this scenario: you’re preparing to file a financial disclosure in a divorce case. To protect your client’s confidentiality, you’ve dutifully removed all of their bank details, their social security number, and so on from the Word document. You deleted it, so it’s gone permanently, right? Not so fast! It doesn’t take much digging on […]