3/21 -Thurs Using Word for Windows to manage law office information and to create documents. Word secrets/macros, style sheets and talking to other programs.

Baldwin-LeClair, Jack; "Computer Assisted Internal Research", Legal Professional, Creative Computing, Vol. 7 No. 2, November/December,

1989.

Baldwin-LeClair, Jack, et. al.; "The Gang of Four and other Leaders: Identifying and Managing Appropriate Technology for the Small to

Medium Size Law Firm."Legal Assistant Today, Creative Computing,

Vol. 8 No. 4, March/April, 1991.

Computer Assisted Internal Research

by: Jack Baldwin-LeClair, M.A., Ed.S, J.D.

The author is Coordinator of Academic Computing in the Department of Legal

Studies at Montclair State College, Upper Montclair, NJ. He is also a practicing

attorney in New Jersey. His consulting firm, Millennium Juris, Inc., provides

training, analyses and evaluation of hardware and software for small to medium-sized law firms.

A Hidden Gold Mine

Your firm may be sitting on a hidden resource, a veritable gold mine waiting to be

explored and exploited. You are probably smugly thinking that your firm has all the technology it can handle and that it runs efficiently. Even if your firm is a model of technological innovation and efficiency, computer assisted internal research (CAIR) may be something that you have not

fully exploited. The seeds of CAIR are in your library, your personal computer, and in your files.

By now most of us are familiar with Computer Assisted Legal Research (CALR).

WESTLAW and LEXIS are the two major competitors in the CALR marketplace. Cases,

statutes, and general information are available from both. Citations and language of a particular judge are only a query away using CALR. The use of CALR can greatly enhance the efficiency of

any project requiring research. We know that CALR can be a fast and efficient means to gather computer research but CAIR is an unseen and an unnoticed resource in the bowels of your firm is

a research resource that is seldom efficiently exploited, if exploited at all.

CAIR, the Next Innovation in Legal Research

CAIR is the storage, management, and retrieval of research documents which are within

your files, library, and adversaries' responses. In the hectic melee which is characteristic of many firms, much of the work preparing memoranda of law is redundant. More experienced legal practitioners sometimes remember similar cases or have accumulated a file of photocopied

research. More often than not organization and storage of research is overlooked in favor of the more immediate concerns of production.

The Brief Bank, an Old Idea with a New Twist

The well organized traditional law firm maintains a brief bank. A brief bank in the most

primitive incarnation, is a series of binders labeled in alphabetical order which contain legal briefs produced by the firm and produced by adversaries. Enhanced somewhat by an index in the form

of an index card nomenclature, the brief bank effectively provided an internal management system

for legal research embedded in legal memoranda. Index card systems contain several categories

such as name of the case, forum, date of memoranda, judge or hearing officer, and several

categories listing points of law treated by the brief. Someone wishing to write a brief on a given topic consults the index, removes the appropriate memorandum or memoranda, photocopies the

salient and relevant points of law, and cuts and pastes sections of legal research into place in a developing memorandum.

In most firms, a brief bank described above, was the extent of internal research

management. In truth, most firms had neither the need nor the resources for a system even

approaching the efficiency and complexity of the brief bank. The advent of the microcomputer

with the capability of storing thousands of pages of information for several hundred dollars more

than the cost of a fifteen hundred dollar machine altered the calculus of financial efficiency. Computer Assisted Internal Research has become a necessary tool to build a competitive and consequently a successful law firm.

The ideal CAIR system is context dependent. No two firms are exactly alike. Only broad categories are safe for prescription. Large (25 plus attorneys), medium firms (6 to 25 attorneys), and small firms (fewer than 5 attorneys) will have different CAIR requirements. The elements

common to all three categories will be treated in this article.

Some assumptions are in order. First, all firms which require CAIR perform some

litigation. Litigation requires production of briefs or memoranda of law. Briefs can be

categorized as motion briefs (usually pre-trial discovery requests), trial briefs (dispositive questions of law including summary judgement briefs which force a judgement on a point of law)

and specialty briefs (evidentiary issues, injunctions and miscellaneous relief). Motion briefs contain points of law with a high degree of recurrence. They do not deal with particularly volatile areas of law, although there are exceptions. Consequently, each discovery brief can be reused

much like a template or a form. The points of law can be stored as documents. Only the facts

need be changed to integrate particular facts into a cogent argument. Trial briefs contain volatile legal issues which are constantly and subtly changing. Trial briefs are much more complex. The shading of legal meaning and interpretation of fact patterns require more significant modification. Trial briefs should be disassembled into points of law which can be stored as indexed paragraphs

or legal points. Specialty briefs are highbreds as you might imagine. Storage can be in either template or paragraph form depending upon the nature of the issues in a particular case. The size

of the firm, the complexity of the area of law the firm litigates, and the fury of the practice will determine the mixture of types of storage. Generally, a firm will employ some combination of the

two types mentioned.

The EBB and FLOW of Production

The mechanics of storage determines the efficiency of the process. The EBB and FLOW

principle operates. EBB means Electronic Brief Bank. FLOW means Final Law Office

Workproduct.

A high rate of FLOW requires a concentration of EBB in a fluid form. Fluidity requires that the

brief bank storage is electronic minimizing retyping or other time consuming menial intervention. Fluidity will provide a torrent of raw legal information to the assembler or producer of the final memorandum. Information storage must be electronic and in full text form.

A wordprocessing program is the most efficient storage method. Most law offices use

Wordperfect, Word, Multimate Advantage, or Wordstar. Any of these packages can store full

the full text of legal arguments. The most efficient way to store the information is as discrete entire documents as in the case of motion briefs or as points of law in documents indexed by point

of law or issue. The former method will identify points of law by document names. The latter

method will incorporate many points of law in a single document beginning with a key word or

phrase. The document name will identify the area of law. The sub-categories will be contained within. For example, a civil rights issue involving qualified immunity, should be stored in a subdirectory named 1983 (identifying points of law under 42 USC section 1983). Individual

issues such as statute of limitations in separate documents named qualified immunity, statute of limitations, punitive damages, of other salient points. At the beginning of each document an index listing the sub-categories should be listed. In Wordperfect 5.0, the task is simplified by placing the index in a non-printable comment which stands out from the rest of the text. A simple search

for the index term corresponding to the first identifying word which precedes each point of law

will yield the text of the law on that point. The relevant text once found can be highlighted as a block of text and moved to another document. When all relevant points of law have been

identified and moved, a new document containing all the available law on the topic is ready to be edited by incorporation of the facts of the particular case.

Profiting from your Adversaries' Workproduct

Another source of legal research which is often overlooked is the legal workproduct of

your adversaries and co-counsel. In firms which represent both plaintiffs and defendants on a

variety of issues and are involved in complex multi-party litigation, adversaries' and co-counsels' legal memoranda may contain the core of your next brief. The legal information can be mined in

two ways. Co-counsel are often not adverse to sending a copy of their workproduct on a floppy

disk. An inexpensive conversion program will change the formatting of the document to a

compatible file format. Adversaries will not be so obliging but are not immune from a little honest borrowing. If your firm is technologically evolved enough to possess a scanner, an adversary's

brief can be read into an electronic file and added to your CAIR system. If a scanner is not available, important and recurring legal issues can be typed into your files.

If typing adversaries' briefs into your research files seems inefficient, consider the amount

of dead time which most firms have after a furious dash to produce a brief is over. Rather than ignoring your staff as they recover from the trauma of post production, I suggest that the process

of cleaning up can include maintenance of your electronic brief bank. Management will be

impressed and your research system will be at top readiness for the next demand.

Updating, Shepherdizing, and Cite Checking with Sidekick

Raw legal information will often require updating. The common law is constantly

evolving. The answer in the traditional legal setting is to take a printout of the legal points to a library and to laboriously check each legal citation to determine whether a higher court or

subsequent court has reversed, modified or interpreted the law in that area. Traditional updating requires that all legal citations be shepherized to determine the validity of the cited principle. Those of you who have checked citations know that the process requires a great deal of time. If a principle of law has been modified editing of the legal document by inclusion of new citations is required to make the legal citation current.

LEXIS and WESTLAW are the most prominent Computer Assisted Legal Research

databases. Both services provide the means to download cases found with queries or

shepherdizing to an electronic file of hard disk or floppy disk. The special downloading service is expensive however. The expense can be circumvented by using an inexpensive memory resident

utility called Sidekick. Sidekick is a "pop up" utility. When loaded automatically after a

computer is turned on, Sidekick resides

in memory waiting to be invoked by pressing a sequence of keys, the control and alternate key

(ctrl and alt) on most computers. Within either LEXIS or WESTLAW Sidekick can be invoked.

The pop up screen will appear in the middle of the CALR screen. Sidekick has an import function

which can identify and copy text from a computer screen into the notepad function of Sidekick .

Once imported and saved in the notepad file, information can be copied into an existing

document. The application is elegant if not completely simple. Updated or shepherdized material

can be added to a document containing legal research. The new document can be incorporated

into a memorandum of law, and the resulting updated information can be transferred to the

original CAIR file to keep the research current.

The implications of CAIR are staggering. A networked computer system with a computer

or workstation on every desk provides a window on a powerful resource to which every member

of a firm can have access. Combined with CALR and using Sidekick as a gateway, memoranda of

law can be produced without the friction of printing until the final version of the brief is ready for production. The newly created document provides yet another resource from which legal

principles or templates can be copied and stored. Legal Professionals who are concerned with increasing the overall productivity of their firms are well advised to take heed of the technology available with which to construct their own systems of EBB and FLOW.

In the next issue we will consider the pros and cons of UNIX, an operating system which

is both a current alternative to MS-DOS and the future of networked computer systems.

Baldwin-LeClair, Jack, et. al.; "The Gang of Four and other Leaders: Identifying and Managing Appropriate Technology for the Small to Medium Size Law Firm."Legal Assistant Today, Creative Computing, Vol. 8 No. 4, March/April, 1991.

Jack Baldwin-LeClair, M.A. Ed.S. J.D., Amy Renna, B.A., Kathleen Ruccio, B.A., Lila Sachs, B.A., Jane Shutte, M.A., and Peter H. Vink, B.A.

This issue's article is about products which help create the perfect law office. As regular readers of my column know, I am an advocate of appropriate technology integrated into the flow of a firm's production process. The principle is deceptively simple. Law offices vary in design and complexity almost as much as people do. For that reason, prescriptions for law office success can cannot follow chapter and verse from a single textbook, but must be borrowed, abstracted and evolved from general management and technical principals. In last issue's column, for instance, staff training and technical integration was discussed. As discussed there, the context into which technology or personnel is placed must be understood completely. Success in creating and managing change must be a creative adaption of standard principles or products. Simply stated: what is good for one law office may not be good for another.

With that principle in mind, I assigned my Spring 1989 Advanced Computer Concepts class the task of choosing hardware and software for a hypothetical law office. Their budget was a generous one which is largely irrelevant now because prices have fluctuated significantly since they completed their project. The class was asked to choose among various products available and to recommend a production architecture. The class was comprised of experienced adult learners varying in age from early twenties to mid-fifties. All the students had business experience or were currently working in legal environments. They had at least two courses in computer applications. They had used or been exposed to over thirty applications programs, several operating systems, and a multitude of utility packages used in the practice of law.

For simplicity sake and because this article is limited in length, software and hardware will be treated categorically. The length of this article prevents comprehensive treatment of each software package or hardware feature. Future articles will include more complete analysis of individual programs. Recommendations about various programs and networks will be treated separately. At the end of the article, some new software including some thrilling updates of some of my old favorites which have crossed my desk recently will be reviewed. This article is a tentative look at products for the law office environment.

Wordprocessing: The Gang of Four

As you may recall, the gang of four were the inheritors of power in the Chinese government after the death of Chairman Mao. They were widely vilified because, among other accusations, they occupied a central position in the government and usurped power. In law offices today, there is a similar occupation of power. However, their position is neither because of usurpation or corruption but because they have inherited or rightly moved into positions of popularity because of the features offered, support, or loyalty by many users. Multimate Advantage II, Wordstar 5.0, Wordperfect 5.1, and Word 5.0 are the premier programs in use throughout the United States in the law office environment. Xywrite and Q&A deserve honorable mention but are not reviewed in this column. The so called gang of four are reviewed here because, at least in the Northeast they are dominant in law office use. Also, many readers have called or written asking for recommendations when they were computerizing their offices or were thinking of updating their software.

The class split the task of evaluating wordprocessing programs each taking a particular program. The class examined the programs from the point of view of practicing paralegals. They considered: ease of use: how quickly a new user could start creating documents, power: the capability of programs to perform law office tasks with a minimum of gymnastics, and transportability of files: whether files could be used by other programs with a minimum of effort.

Wordstar and Wordperfect were reviewed using an IBM PS/2, Wordperfect was reviewed on an IBM-XT, a PS/2 and an Everex 80386. Word was reviewed on an IBM-XT and the Everex. Multimate was reviewed on an Acer 80286 and an IBM-XT. All machines were attached to a laser printer which was Hewlett Packard compatible.

A word about Multimate Advantage and Wordstar 5.0. is in

order. They were reviewed in non-law office specific versions which were not current. To be fair to these ever popular programs which are found in many law offices, we reviewed only their basic features and interactive capability. When we receive new versions, they will receive the same consideration that Word and Wordperfect received.

The class preferred Wordperfect 5.1 hands down to the other three programs for law office tasks. Word received honorable mention for its ability to perform near desktop publishing tasks. Wordstar received recognition for ease of use. Multimate was not a particular favorite among my students but this may have been because the older version which we used was not the optimum law office configuration. Multimate did receive some positive comments for its mail merge function which was found to be efficient.

In the user friendliness category, Wordstar 5.0 with its mnemonic commands was well liked. Wordstar 5.0 unlike its user hostile progenitor which used obscure commands, is easy to use. The simple command structure uses one letter commands which take a user to sub-menus. The command menu can be hidden for more advanced users or displayed for beginners. Word's menu was similarly simple to use. The Word command line is displayed on the bottom below the screen. The screen appears like a window. The escape key toggles a highlighted bar off and on. The Word sub menus which are reached by selecting commands from the main menu give a good measure of control over the program. Printers, fonts, and the usual complement of formatting commands are clearly defined in the submenus. Multimate was found to be the least user friendly. However, Multimate may have an inherent advantage for users who learned wordprocessing on dedicated wordprocessors. The command structure of Multimate is similar to that of some dedicated wordprocessing systems. The command structure was displayed on individual pages. The full page displays offer tremendous power and control over various program functions. The commands which are counter intuitive for computer trained users may be actually simpler to use for dedicated wordprocessing trained personnel. Wordperfect 5.1 was given low marks for user friendliness. The hidden menus are invoked via a series of function keys and coded letter keys. For instance, Shift F7 invokes the printer control menu. F8 pressed alone toggles the underlining function on and off. The pull down menu available in version 5.1 makes the program much easier to use. With a mouse, Wordperfect 5.1 is definitely easier to use but is still somewhat unwieldy. Word is a program written for use with a mouse and is inherently more user friendly as a result. Although I have not had the opportunity to experiment with Word and Windows 3.0 together, a paralegal in one of my classes claims that the combination of the two creates a multi-tasking window environment which is intelligently structure and easy to use.

Power users will appreciate Wordperfect and Word. The two programs stand out among the four because they have many functions and a significant control over documents.

Wordperfect's power features are very much law office oriented. Especially worthy of note is Wordperfect's table of authorities generator. If you have ever produced a long brief, you will appreciate the capability which allows the creation of a table of cases and table of contents automatically. Wordperfect allows a user to mark and compile tables of authorities and contents automatically. The tables can be revised easily once created. This is a feature which is very important in a legal environment in which briefs are revised frequently. Adding text to the middle of a brief can scramble a table of authorities or a table of contents. Using Wordperfect, a user need only rerun the compiling function to create new tables. The only drawback of the table of authorities generator is that it is difficult to use. Even using the Wordperfect manual which is clearly written, generating tables is tricky especially for a novice user.

Word does not have an authorities generator built in but is fully compatible with add on products such as Jurisoft's FullAuthority which will compile tables quickly and easily. Multimate and Wordstar can generate tables but were not table of authorities specific.

In the power user department, Word stands out for its printer and screen control. Word is the closest of the three packages to desktop publishing.

Wordperfect with ScreenExtender and Printing Features

Third party screen extenders are available for Wordperfect which convert what would otherwise be clumsily highlighted text into underlined, highlighted, and special fonts for those of us using color monitors. I have experimented with a package called "ScreenExtender" for Wordperfect. The program is produced by Stairway Software, 700 Harris Street, Suite 204, Charlottesville, Virginia 22901, (804) 977- 7770. I found the program to be helpful in converting somewhat sloppy VGA conventions which represent underlining as highlighted text into a what you see is what you get format. Since I prefer a font called Helvetica 10 point for most of my documents, ScreenExtender gives me a full screen view of my documents which would ordinarily extend off the screen. The program is available for $79.95.

Wordperfect and Wordstar provide access to fonts. The Wordperfect fonts are available either in cartridge form or as soft fonts. Soft fonts are disk loaded fonts which are available at a nominal fee from either Wordperfect or a third party vender. Wordstar provides printer control through an easily accessible font menu. Early version of Wordstar, especially Wordstar 2000 suffered from a lack of coordination between the program and printer manufacturers. Fonts were hard to obtain as a result. The advent of the laser printer and the subsequent rise of the Hewlett Packard standard had tamed this problem in general. So, there is no reason to believe that Wordstar cannot make any modern laser printer perform to its fullest capability.

Multimate uses PAT or printer action tables in the version which my class reviewed. The Multimate printer control screen is a powerful feature because it give user access to more printer functions than most user would ever want. All four packages provided acceptable printer control. Word dominated in the area of screen representation of documents. Overall, Wordperfect with ScreenExtender was the package of choice for the law office power user. The number of features offered which are law office specific made Wordperfect a runaway winner in the power use department.

All the packages reviewed provide separate programs to convert text from one format to another. Wordperfect provides a powerful but separate program which must be invoked from the command line. It is available from inside the program by exiting temporarily to a shell program. Unfortunately, a user must know the name of the program to convert it. A function which would allow a user to view subdirectories and choose among files by highlighting would be a welcome addition. The other three programs provide conversion functions. All four programs are roughly equal in the conversion category. They are similar in transportability for this reason and are virtually undistinguishable on this measure.

Support is another matter entirely. I have had occasion to call for support on all four programs over the past several years. Wordperfect provides excellent support as does Word. Multimate and Wordstar are acceptable but not quite up to the standards of the former two. Wordperfect support is extremely competent. The product experts who staff the phones have an excellent command of the program in all its versions and are knowledgeable about other peripheral products especially printers. Word has the quality support you would expect from Microsoft Corporation, competent, knowledgeable, and courteous. Wordstar and Multimate are competent in their handling of end user questions. Although, I have found them somewhat more difficult to reach.

Our conclusion is that, although Wordperfect was the program of choice for law offices, all four programs are solid performers. Switching wordprocessing programs should not be a reflexive response to changing technology. Think twice before you leap. Make sure your office has the need for a new wordprocessing program, has the personnel who are capable of being cross trained in a new system, be prepared to restructure your document indexing, and most important, be prepared to convert all your documents to a new format.

Hardware and Allocation of Resources: LANtastic and Novell

My class's task was to analyze the needs of a small to medium size law firm which wanted to maximize the use of current computers and to minimize cost. In the small network category, my class suggested LANtastic. The class's analysis was based upon their use of a Novell network of PS/2 machines which used an 80386 PS/2 machine as a fileserver. For those of you unfamiliar with the difference between the two technologies, a simple explanation is in order. Novell is a star configuration which uses a high power, high speed machine as the hub of the system. The high speed machine provides access to applications programs for each machine which is attached to it. LANtastic, by comparison, is a bus LAN. A bus LAN is capable of sharing each attached computer's resource. Any computer can access any other computer's disk resources as if they were actually drives on that machine. Novell networks are powerful and fast, but they are complicated and require a considerable amount of expertise to maintain. LANtastic is relatively simple to install and requires maintenance that any computer savvy law office manager can provide with a minimum of study.

I recently received a new version of LANtastic's network software. The new software and manual cures all the criticisms which I made about six months ago in an otherwise very favorable column. The new software is accessible via a pop-up utility and provides network access to printers, modems, and disks.

LANtastic provides functions almost identical to a Novell system. For the money, LANtastic is much cheaper for a five to ten machine network, simpler to maintain and easier to use.

Westlaw and Lexis

We at Montclair State College use Westlaw in all aspects of our program to teach computer assisted legal research. Lexis has sometimes been available to my advance class on a limited basis. Obviously, the class leaned toward Westlaw because of familiarity. However, the class was awed by the power of Lexis to provide access to general periodical databases, Nexis, and databases containing medical journals, Medis. For complex cases, Lexis was highly recommended by the class. In a classroom assignment, the class was asked to research a medical malpractice case involving a physicians use of Laetrile to cure cancer. The class found that they were able to more fully comprehend the use and abuse of Laetrile using Lexis. The class recommended Lexis for use in highly complex cases which might be fact dependent.

Other Specialty Programs

The class recommended several program for use in firms which concentrate in specific types of law. Shepard-McGraw Hill's case management system for personal injury received very high marks as a fully integrated case management system. The program provides interview to judgment support for personal injury firms.

Timeslips, a timebilling program, received high marks for its power and versatility. The program provides a decentralized timebilling approach in which every time keeper can input time worked from his or her own computer. The pop-up utility feature allows users to quickly enter and exit the program from any application in which they are working.

The class had much more to say about a variety of programs and configurations. Unfortunately, comment will have to wait for future columns.

New Products

I recently received a copy of "Qwik-Rules 1990" Version 1.0, a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure database. The program provides access to the District Court Rules, Appellate Rules (available in separate modules), Supreme Court Rules, and Federal Rules of Evidence. The full text of the rules appear in page form by numerical heading upon command. Movement through the databases is quick and easy. I found the program easy to use and very helpful. Key court decisions as annotations would be an excellent addition. The program is available from National Legal Research Systems, Inc., 1091 Airport Road, Minden, Nevada 89423. Their phone number is (800) 535-8153.

You may remember my rave review of TickleX, a tickler

product from Integra Computing in Marietta, Georgia (404) 973-3586 for $50. I recently received version 5.7 which enhances the program's already superb graphic representation of calendars and

date tracking. The new version improves TickleX by making it

easier to use and providing a variety of ways to restructure

events, reminders, appointments, and deadlines. This program has

my highest recommendation.

Next issue, I will be reviewing three memory management

programs which open the door to use of the powerful new 80386

machines despite the limitations of the operating system known as

DOS and make switching among powerful programs quick and easy.