Law Technology

Microsoft Word Tips for Jury Instructions

By Bryan

I just saw a great tip from Carol’s Corner Office Blog about printing jury instructions. One of the problems with preparing jury instructions is that you need a copy for you, opposing counsel, and the judge with citations on them. You also need jury instructions for the jury without these citations. Of course you can make one set, print them, delete the citation information, and then print them. It always seems, however, that something gets screwed up in this process.

Carol has a great suggestion that I have never heard before. She explains:

1. Create your Jury Instructions for the judge, complete with citations.
2. Now select the citations at the bottom of the page.
3. Click on Format | Font.
4. Under Effects, select Hidden, which will hide the citation text.
5. When you are ready to print the judge?s Jury Instructions, click on File | Print or use the shortcut CTRL + P.
6. From the Print menu, click the Options button.
7. From the Print dialog box, select Hidden Text under Include with Document.
8. Click OK two times to close the dialog box and print the document with cites.

I think this is a great tip that I am definately adding to my knowledge base. I just wish I had this tip a few weeks ago when I was preparing jury instructions.

Full post as published by The Connected Lawyer on January 13, 2009 (boomark / email).