Different Perspective: Use Legal Resources Meant for Public

Posted in Findlaw, Forms, LexisNexis, U.S., Westlaw, Wolters Kluwer | Tagged , ,

Typically, a lawyer or someone else doing legal research might come at a problem – and look for resources – as a lawyer.  As I outline in the text, that world of information is pretty well-documented.  Some resources are designed to provide a public access point, meaning general public, to encourage non-legal researchers to get accustomed to a service or feature and then have the possibility of upselling them to a subscription.

A good example of this is the Business Owner’s Toolkit, which provides small business owners with a mixture of resources but is powered by Wolters Kluwer content.  Like LexisNexis’ LexisOne and Fastcase’s Public Library of Law, you need to create a free registration to access the content.  You’ll find U.S. state tax and government contract forms and sample business forms that you can tailor to your own practice.  There is also text, as on the state tax obligations page, which can tell you information about costs for incorporating in a particular state and give an overview of what taxes are charged in that state.

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Managing Law Journal Articles You Find in Your Legal Research

Posted in Add-on, Bookmarklet, Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Law Journals, Social Science Research Network | Tagged , ,

There are a number of bookmarking and citation tools I mention in the text, which have a variety of uses, from managing Web sites to articles, to images.  One that isn’t that flexible, but that you might still want to consider, is CiteULike.  It was developed to be a limited tool, focusing on storing citation information about peer-reviewed journals.  If you attempt to add an article from a newspaper or other source, it will not be able to save it for you.

It is quite handy when you are finding law journal articles that come with prepared citation information.  One of my favorite sites for scholarly legal articles is the Social Science Research Network, of which the Legal Scholarship Network is a subpart.  You can find emerging work from academics across North America, as well as published articles from well-known law reviews.  You can combine SSRN, your Web browser, and CiteULike for easy management of these citations.

Citeulike is well developed enough in the academic world that there are now multiple browser extensions for it.  Google Chrome users have the CiteULike Web Importer, and Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer users can add the Post to CiteULike bookmarklet to their toolbar.  When you search SSRN and find a relevant article, you can click on your new icon and insert the relevant citation information into CiteULike.

The downside is that it is pretty particular.  Say you retrieve a law journal article from a fee-based database like Cengage Learning databases licensed by Knowledge Ontario.  Even when I selected full text and peer-reviewed and selected an article that had citation information at the bottom, it was unable to grab it.

An upside to CiteULike is that, when it can find the information, it creates a pretty detailed record.  Law students, academics, and lawyers dealing with a lot of law journal information may find this useful.  Another is that CiteULike is is a social environment, so that you can see what other participants are saving to their account and interact with researchers following a similar path.  This is less useful for lawyers, perhaps, but might be a good reason to use CiteULike if you are following up on an issue and want to see who else might know more about it.

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Color Code Your Windows 7 File Folders

Posted in File Management, Windows | Tagged ,

I remember when I started working in law firms (well before law school) and was introduced to the variety of color coding of client files.  Some firms I have worked at had yellow folders for correspondence, red folders for pleadings, etc.  These sorts of filing tricks are quite individual and you may have some of your own.  Now you can start to translate them – if they involve color – onto your Windows PC!

Colored Folders in Windows with Folderico 3

Lifehacker recently highlighted a utility called Folderico 4 that will colorize Windows’ yellow folder icon to the color you’d prefer.  Use a single color to identify client folders and a different one for non-billable folders, or use colors for particular sub folders to make it even faster to file your electronic documents in the right place.

Not on Windows 7?  Windows XP and Vista ( and Windows 7) users can try Federico 3 or  Folder Marker Free.

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E-mail Your Research Notes into Evernote, Better Than Ever

Posted in E-mail, Evernote | Tagged ,

I mention the Evernote research notebook in the FLI text and it has some great features on your computer.  They have just announced improvements to their Web version (to which you can synchronize your computer-based notebooks for better access) .  One that caught my eye was the ability to e-mail a note into a notebook.  I like any tool that enables you to avoid having to visit and log in to a site to use it.  Anytime I can search from my Google Chrome Omnibox or save a bookmark into Delicious without going there, I’m happy.

Evernote’s new e-mail feature works the same way.  You could already e-mail a note into Evernote, but now you can send it into the specific notebook into which you want it placed.

If you’re an Evernote user, here is the blog posting with information about the new feature and how to use it.  If you’re not using Evernote or another research notebook, this free tool can really change how you research, for the better.

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