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Merging law firms with merging technology

January 12, 2012

It’s hardly surprising that given the current ‘threats’ to the legal sector that many firms are considering mergers as a way of future business development.  Andrew Otterburn’s survey reported on in the Law Society Gazette confirms that the sector will remain active, and perhaps rumours of collective demise are rather exaggerated.

There are however plenty of opportunities out there for those seeking to join forces and take their businesses in a different direction, and if it is by merger, we all know that it may not all be a bed of roses once the ink has dried, but one thing can be made smoother.  Taking the opportunity to merge and upgrade a core technology, such as Microsoft Office, and re-brand templates and precedents needn’t be a painful process. 

Templates in Microsoft Word are one of the most important productivity tools that exist in law firms.  They appear as documents and precedents and they interact with case management and CRM systems.  At a very basic level they provide the layout of faxes, agreements and letters.  More often lawyers rely on long, heavily structured and numbered documents containing codes, headings and styles which are customised for each firm.

In firms that are merging there will be different styles of templates, both in formatting and construction.  The number of documents could run into thousands.  

Templates are at the very core of functionality that makes Word so important and therefore their effective management is a must for every forward-looking legal IT manager. 

Document Direct has the technical know-how, capacity and resource to reformat and rebrand thousands of templates and can provide finished products in tight deadlines. Working in Office 2010 Document Direct can rebuild and rebrand templates, whether as a result of a migration to Word 2010 or a merger of two firms’ styles.

If you want more information contact Jayne Smith on 0151 227 9150/07976 852 359 or visit our contact page.

Posted by Jayne Smith | Filed Under Services for Law Firms | Leave a Comment 

A free template for you

January 27, 2009

At Document Direct we’re not interested in the font size, line spacing or how many pages your document has because our charges are not based on the cost per page.  Instead, we operate a very fair system of charging by the length of your recording (your dictation).  And to be more helpful to you, we will also design some templates so you don’t waste any of your precious time and you can just  fill in the blanks. 

Our standard pleadings template can be downloaded for free by clicking on this link: 

Particulars of Claim template. 

This template has a standard court heading, automatic paragraph numbering, automatic page numbering and a neatly aligned backsheet.  Simply overtype to use it. 

If you would like any help with using this template, or perhaps need some help in setting up standard documents then contact us for free advice. 

Posted by Jayne Smith | Filed Under Digital Dictation for Lawyers, General, Practical Law, Training | Leave a Comment 

Word processing and Practical Law Precedents

June 9, 2008

A good legal secretary will have excellent word processing skills which will help them understand how various documents and templates are set up so they can amend and alter the document without losing any formatting to font, paragraph spacing, numbering and automatic cross referencing.  It’s vital that the document is presented clearly and consistently so that the law firm is represented professionally.  

An example of how a legal document is formatted is a precedent from Practical Law.  

  • The document is split into sections: for the front sheet, table of contents and the body of the document. 
  • In each section the footer text will differ slightly and page numbering should start after the table of contents. 
  • The table of contents will automatically update to the text created in the body of the document by pressing the F9 key. 
  • Automatic numbering to paragraphs is applied using heading styles.
  • Cross referencing throughout the document is applied which will automatically update if paragraphs are changed or added to.

Learning how to link and unlink headers and footers, create, amend and apply heading styles and insert and update cross referencing can easily be done with our online training courses. 

Access to your own web-based learning course, online books and a mentoring service will give you everything you need to know to learn advanced word processing techniques.

In typical Document Direct style, we’ll arrange for you to have a sample course so you can try before you buy.  Click here to learn more and to choose your sample course.

 

Posted by Jayne Smith | Filed Under Practical Law, Recruitment, Training | Leave a Comment