CiteGenie is awesome

I can not believe it's taken me this long to write about CiteGenie.  CiteGenie is a great firefox extension that I literally use every single day.

Cutting and pasting when doing legal research using your browser is simple. But having to construct the citation for what you pasted is not so simple. This is especially true with legal citations from sources like Westlaw. You have to stop and copy the case name separately, determine the pinpoint page numbers, and adjust the date and court name format.

Basically, CiteGenie adds... oh well... I'll just let them tell you:

When CiteGenie™ is installed, it adds a new option to the browser's right-click menu to "Copy with CiteGenie."  To use CiteGenie, simply highlight the text in the court opinion, right-click and select the "Copy with CiteGenie" option (or just press Ctrl-Shift-C).  Then you can paste the text into any other program, such as your word processor, and the text will be pasted, along with the pinpoint citation for the selected text from the court opinion.  This illustrated example shows CiteGenie™ in operation.

CiteGenie can handle Bluebook or ALWD citation styles.  Originally support was pretty limited to case law, but the author has consistently expanded support and more and more sources (eg. legal encyclopedias, periodicles, journals) are covered with each update.

CiteGenie comes with a 90 day free trial.  CiteGenie Pro costs $14.97 and gives you the ability to install the Pro version on three separate computers (Office, Laptop, Home).  Additional computers added for $4.99 apiece.  There doesn't appear to be any difference in price for a commercial/personal license.

CiteGenie makes copying and pasting law from westlaw or lexis a no-brainer.

Allwaysync as a Backup Solution for the Small Law Office

As the techie in the office, I am responsible for the data backup strategy. To put it simply, think back to college when you were pulling that all nighter to finish the final paper and you got that blue screen of death and the smart ass passing by said "hope you saved." With the ever increasing move to digital file keeping in the legal world testing fate is no longer an option.

There are a number of strategies for protecting data. Vaulting, where data is kept backed up off-site, is one of the best. At the very minimum,  some sort of redundancy is required.

I've been testing AllwaySync to keep a mobile laptop synchronized with the files I'm working with on the office network, to both keep files current and to protect the hard work I have put into creating them. The program works as advertised and it is fairly easy to set up. Just tell the program the folder on the local and remote computers to keep synchronized, analyze the folders, tell the program how to resolve conflicts, and sync. The program has an option to do a scheduled sync but I have yet to test it.

AllwaySync is free for personal use.

OfficeTab

The internets are abuzz this morning with posts about OfficeTab.

OfficeTab is an addon for Microsoft Word/Excel/Powerpoint that enables you to open multiple files within a single window using Firefox-like tabs.  The initial reaction is that this is a great feature that should come standard with Word.  One drawback that I've found in the short time I've been using it (the last 20 minutes) is that there is no obvious way to open two instances of Word for purposes of comparing two documents side by side.  There is, of course, the "View Side by Side" option on the "View" tab.  However, if you're like me and have dual monitors set up you would rather have two separate files open.

Additionally, there is some concern over the fact that this is a 5-day-old addon posted from an unknown chinese programmer with questionable Terms & Conditions language.  See the links above.

Original Chinese Page | Translated Page | Direct Download

Word blockquote tip

When is a quote more than just a quote? When it's a blockquote.  And when is a quote a blockquote?  The Blue Book § 5.1 and ALWD § 47.5 agree the magic number is 50 words or more.  ALWD and The Elements of Legal Style § 4.9 both also direct use of a blockquote if the quote is 4 lines or longer of typed text; but that rule appears to be less universally accepted -- and is irrelevant for my tip today, so I've chosen to ignore it.

in Word there is a dead-simple way to measure if you've come up upon the 50-word-threshold.  Highlight your quote (without citation) and look in the bottom left corner of the window.

Bam, the length of the selection is displayed.  My quote here is 80 words so I'm applying my blockquote autostyle to it.

Convert Legal description to Longitude & Latitude

earthpoint.us has a great tool that came in handy for me just last week.  If you're looking for the physical location of a property you can enter the township, range and section and convert that information to longitude and latitude (or vice versa).  Very helpful in rural condemnation cases.

edit: this tool from the University of Montana appears to do the same thing.

Show Links to Appendices on SDCL website with Greasemonkey Userscript

I came up with a quick and dirty method of linking to the appendices on the SDCL website.  Previously the only way (that I'd found) to get to them online was via a text search.  I've created a userscript that adds links to the appendices of SDCL 15-6. 

You must be using Firefox and have Greasemonkey installed.  See the homepage here or install the script here.

I'd be happy to make more for any other specific chapters anyone suggests.  Drop us an email at techoflaw@gmail.com with your request.

Easy Outlook Date Calculations

No more counting! No more counting! No more counting!

If you happened to be walking by my office door a few minutes ago you may have heard this cheer, followed by my clumsily tripping over a bankers box full of papers.  OK, I didn't actually do a cheer (I did trip over the box though), but I was excited enough that I felt like doing one.

I just discovered a drop-dead simple way of setting future reminders in Outlook (ex, 30 days 'discovery responses due'). 

1. Create a new appointment in your Outlook Calendar like you would anything else;
2. Give it a subject;
3.  For the "Start Time" use a plain text description of what you want to do.  It recognizes all sorts of text strings here's a few that I've tested and work for sure in Outlook 2003
• "30 days after today" 
• "45 days after tomorrow" 
• "3 days before June 25th"  (a/k/a The "if-you-haven't-bought-an-anniversary-present-yet-drive -immediately-to-a-jewelry-store-you-idiot" reminder)
  
• "two weeks after today"
•  unfortunately it doesn't seem to recognize "weekdays" or "business days" for the sub-11 day time periods.
  
4. Hit "Tab" and then save the appointment.
   

This is going to be an extremely helpful little trick to help you stay on top of future due dates