Legal Research

Shortcuts

By Shaunna Mireau

Shortcuts, those little things that make our tech-life easier, have been making headlines this week.

Here at Slaw, Dan Pinnington posted about his excellent article on essential technology skills. David Canton followed up with more shortcuts and some pet peeves that came to mind. Technolawyer offered up some iPhone shortcuts (Blackberry users can look here) and the Legal Writing Prof Blog mentiond Dan’s tips. My colleagues in the Field Law library learned and shared some useful shortcuts for our Microsoft Access database: Contrl ‘ (moves to the line above) and Control ; (pastes todays date).

I find it hilarious that all of these “keep your hands off that mouse” productivity tips are circulating in the same week as the 40th anniversary of the mouse. It is also interesting to me that in an industry that is still (arguably * *) tied to the billable hour, we frequently look at productivity tools. This section of the CBA Code of Professional Conduct reminds us of our productivity duty:

Practice Competence
The Rule in Chapter II of the Code (Rule II) provides:
1. The lawyer owes the client a duty to be competent to perform any legal services
undertaken on the client?s behalf.
2. The lawyer should serve the client in a conscientious, diligent and efficient manner so as to provide a quality of service at least equal to that which lawyers generally would expect of a competent lawyer in a like situation.
(emphasis mine)

Technology changes are a key component to industrial revolutions, as are economic challenges. Historians might look back on 2008 as the beginning of an industrial revolution. A personal focus on productivity and efficiency can’t hurt as we live through these interesting times.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on December 11, 2008 (boomark / email).