The Illinois Trial Practice Weblog

Writing Tip: Using Footnotes in Early Drafts

Most agree with the idea that in legal briefs, you should cut the footnotes to a minimum.  Nonetheless, it's easy to "drop a footnote" using word-processing programs, and I do it a lot when I'm drafting--to add a note to myself about questions or revisions, or as a placeholder for a digression that can later be moved to another point in the brief.

You can fill up a brief with a number of such footnotes; in later drafts, you can omit them. Having the ability to add a footnote that will be omitted later will allow you to plow ahead when the most important goal is to get to the end of a draft and start over.

Metadata Update

A number of jurisdictions have issued guidance on the ethics of looking at metadata. These include New York, Florida, Alabama, Arizona, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. 

For a summary of the current thinking about metadata, see "Where Do the Footprints of Metadata Lead? Document data mining vexes lawyers and state bar associations," by Marcia Coyle at Law.com.

Links to most of my prior posts on metadata can be found at Legal Underground at the end of the post "New ABA Ethics Opinion on Metadata."

Carolyn Elefant's Solo by Choice

In her new book, Solo by Choice: How to Be the Lawyer You Always Wanted to Be, Carolyn Elefant of the MyShingle weblog writes that technological advances have made it easier and cheaper to open a law office than ever before. At the same time, the old biases against solos are falling away. Says Elefant, "In an entrepreneurial age, starting your own law firm is now appreciated for what it is--an act of entrepreneurialism with an enormous potential for success."

How does one go from law school or a big-firm job to a career as a solo? Elefant's book provides a blueprint. You'll find out how to reach a decision about whether a solo career is right for you, how to plan for the change, and how to grow and market your new practice. One of the book's principle strengths is that it draws on personal anecdotes and insights from scores of real-life solos. There are checklists throughout the book and a number of helpful appendixes with tips for buying equipment, setting up a "paperless office," performing on-line research inexpensively, and creating a sample forms library.

Elefant's book is recommended not only for lawyers thinking about a solo career, but also for those who've already taken the leap, who can read it both for inspiration and new ideas. For other thoughts about the book, see the weblog posts at The Inspired Solo, Build a Solo Practice, LLC, and Simple Justice.

Persuasive Writing for Lawyers

As I wrote in a post last week, Mentor CLE offers free online video CLE courses on a number of topics, some tailored specifically to Illinois lawyers, some not. One of these free online video presentations is "Persuasive Writing for Lawyers" by Helen W. Gunnarsson.

Gunnarsson is an Illinois lawyer who frequently writes for the Illinois Bar Journal. Her lecture on legal writing lasts about an hour and covers the following topics, among others:

• The importance of telling a story;
• In aspiring towards brevity, how to tell what to leave out;
• The problem with making personal attacks;
• How to start a brief;
• Developing a personal writing style;
• Appropriate sentence length;
• Becoming a confident writer.
  

Gunnarsson's presentation is recommended for any lawyer who wants to get -- for free -- some good legal-writing tips. Illinois lawyers can also obtain CLE credit by paying a modest fee.

New Free Resource for Lawyers

Mentor CLE offers free online video CLE courses on a number of topics, some tailored specifically to Illinois lawyers, some not. Examples:

• Building Your Law Practice
• Suing Securities Professionals
• Zoning and the First Amendment
• Landlord and Tenant Law
• Small Law Office Management

You'll undoubtedly find something of interest on the site. You can view the presentations for free or pay $19.95/hour to receive IL MCLE credit.

I'll have a future post about Helen Gunnarsson's lecture, "Persuasive Writing for Lawyers," another one of the free offerings.

Powerpoint Examples from a Trial Tech

You can find some interesting examples of litigation-related Powerpoint presentations in the "PowerPoint Examples" category of Blake Boyd's The Trial Technologist's View. And you'll find more useful tips in the other categories of the weblog.

Related posts:

1. "Plaintiffs' Lawyer Mark Lanier Received Special Powerpoint Training Before First Vioxx Trial"

2. "Free Disk for Plaintiffs' Lawyers: 'Winning With Powerpoint'" 

Streamline Your Plaintiffs Practice

I liked this post from Dave Swanner at the South Carolina Trial Law Blog: "My Goals for the Firm for 2008."

Swanner's post has some good ideas for streamlining a plaintiffs practice. If you happen to be of the plaintiffs-practice persuasion, be sure to take a look.

Electronic Discovery: Reading Up on the Federal Rules

Here are some quick links about electronic discovery and the federal rules, collected from a couple of Google searches while I tried to answer a somewhat-unrelated question--

• For those who want to refresh their recollection of the '06 amendments to the federal rules: "Quick Guide to Electronic Discovery Rules"
• For those who want a second concise guide: "E-Discovery Amendments to the Federal Rules"
• For those who want an up-to-date collection of links to state-law versions of e-discovery rules: "Current Listing of States That Have Enacted E-Discovery Rules"
• For e-discovery junkies who want a book length treatment of the federal amendments: "The Discovery Revolution: A Guide to the E-Discovery Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure"
• For e-discovery junkies with short attention spans who'd prefer a pocket-size guide: "E-Discovery and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: A Pocket Guide"
• For anyone whose particular research focus is emails and recent rulings under the new federal rules: "The New Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: IT Obligations for Emails" (pdf)

Of course, while all of these links are interesting and useful, there's no substitute for actually reading the rules. Remember: do it early, and do it often!