opkthebig.blogg.se

Optimizing Legal ResearchĪn appellate brief is only as good as the research that supports it. For more information about redacting and removing metadata using Acrobat, see. See Attorney Guide to Hyperlinking in the Federal Courts ().įinally, be sure to use Acrobat’s tool to Remove Hidden Information to find and remove metadata from a PDF before filing via PacFile or PACER. A converted PDF is fully text searchable and allows for the retention of bookmarks and hyperlinks. Note that the preferred method for creating a reproduced record is to include converted PDFs of the contents instead of scanned PDFs. It may not be perfect, but it is easier and more reliable than using a Sharpie marker. If you forget to save or overly redact a document, the only fix is to start all over - a huge pain in the neck. Redacting documents in Acrobat is a multistep process and it’s not intuitive. The three Pennsylvania appellate courts have all entered orders requiring parties to file two versions of briefs - an original version and a redacted version that eliminates all confidential information. The recently adopted Public Access Policy of the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania requires the protection of confidential information. If you want to use double-sided pages for the reproduced record, Acrobat permits alternate page numbering from the left side to the right side of the page.

Once a template is created in Acrobat, the numbers will show up on the page in the correct format. After the record is compiled, Acrobat lets you create page numbers in the required format, which in the Pennsylvania appellate courts is (R. (See the comments section of the same review.) Whatever one’s view of the ubiquitous software, Adobe Acrobat’s many features facilitate the creation of the reproduced record/appendix.įor example, multiple documents can easily be merged into one with new documents added in the beginning, middle or end. PC Magazine gave Adobe Acrobat Pro DC 4.5 stars and called it “the gold standard among high-end PDF apps.” See. The only hitch is that you need to import the original exported text file (.TXT) from the court reporter: It doesn’t work with PDF versions of transcripts. Reviewing the Trial Court RecordĪttorneys in the habit of annotating paper transcripts with pens and highlighters should consider Transcript Pad (Transcript Pad is an appthat lets you upload trial transcripts onto an iPad (only) and then annotate the transcript. Here are a few tools - some new and some tried and true - designed to help you produce quality briefs with fewer headaches. A savvy appellate lawyer knows which tools will give the most bang for the buck. Used well, technology can make the appellate lawyer’s job easier by streamlining the tedious parts of researching, writing and filing an appellate brief. Love it or hate it, technology is part of the practice of law.