Modern Brief Writing Technologies

Using Newest Technology for Crafting Briefs

Example Illustraion

Example Illustration

If you are familiar with this law office, with the way we work, with our creativity,  with our use of the best technologies available,  it will come as no surprise that the topic of electronic legal briefs is of great interest to us.  Since we strive to use the most effective way of communicating on behalf of our clients, we constantly try to explore and evaluate new ways to effectively communicate.  In today’s court system,  there are essentially two ways to communicate: (1) by speaking in a courtroom and (2) by submitting documents. The concern of this post is the latter, specifically legal briefs submitted to court.

Modern computers and software have given us great tools to communicate ideas via documents, but the legal community at large has not grasped/accepted this.  Incredible technology to communicate ideas has not been harvested by the legal community at large.  

The following articles provide a good starting point for  a discussion about using more modern technology in electronic legal documents and briefs. Enjoy.

 

General Guide for Creating Briefs

This post is not meant to be a tutorial on how to create electronic briefs. But, an article discussing the basics may be necessary for some to understand what is being said above, and may help provide some guidance for those not as familiar with the technical aspects of electronic briefs.

Sample Requirements for Briefs

Keep in mind that when submitting briefs they must comply to local jurisdictional rules. Provided below are rules for briefs from Massachusetts appellate courts

Shortlist: Software We Use

The short-list below are the ‘go to’ programs we use when creating electronic briefs. There are many other pieces of software that can be used to create elements in electronic briefs (e.g., illustrations, animations, and other multimedia). But, even when fancy elements are not used, the short-list below is more than adequate to create great electronic briefs.

  • Microsoft Word
  • Adobe Acrobat Pro
  • Adobe InDesign
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements
  • Adobe Premier Elements