Legal Technology & Efficiency - A Paralegal Skills Course

Fast & practical skills course on legal tech and legal apps for paralegals, legal assistants, lawyers, & law clerks

What you'll learn

Understand the important role that applications, software, and technology plays in law offices and legal departments.

Develop an innovation-focused mindset open to new technologies and solutions for efficient work

Get an overview of the broad classes of software and applications used in many law offices and legal departments

Look closer at some of the advanced functions used in word processing applications most relevant to paralegals

Survey advanced technology and apps including brief coverage of artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing, and other advanced tools

Requirements

Some background and knowledge of what paralegals do is useful.

No specific prior course required.

For best audio quality, please view this course through the Chrome web browser.

Description

Overview. This course describes the important role of technology, applications, and software in the efficient operation of a law office or law department. It also illustrates how the right approach to these legal tech tools can enable paralegals, lawyers, law clerks, legal interns, legal assistants, and others to optimize their use of time, complete tasks and matters faster, and successfully manage busy case loads and matter dockets. While not intended to be a step-by-step tutorial, it does include comprehensive coverage of legal technologies and apps along with examples, illustrations, and tips for improving or charting out a plan for learning more. Advanced Technologies, Data Analytics, and the Future. We also briefly explore the potential role of the latest and most advanced technologies and how leveraging them can help optimize our approach to case work, priorities, drafting, and potentially bring more job satisfaction for paralegals and attorneys.  Effective Approach to Legal Tech. The course starts by describing the purpose of legal technology from the core software that is used by nearly everyone to the more specialized apps and tools used by different practice areas. Importantly, it provides the student a valuable way to think about and approach technology as an indispensable tool for efficiency and for personal effectiveness. It also briefly discusses some of the ethical considerations unique to the use of software and applications in the legal setting. Categories of legal tech and apps covered include: word processing and office applications, law practice management, time and billing, document management, document assembly and automation, communication and collaboration apps, legal research web-apps, and next generation legal tech tools such as knowledge management systems, legal quality assurance, process automation, and others. Overview of Important Application Types. Importantly, while the course spotlights some specific advanced tools in word processing and other core software that can be useful for most law offices and legal departments, it is not taught as a step-by-step tutorial for specific applications. This is because each specific practice setting and law firm will have its own mix of unique software. The course does provide a good overview of the major classes of software and applications, describing their general purpose, illustrating how they improve efficiency in the law office and help make paralegals more effective. Students can use the exercises and handouts to map out their own plan for further learning of specific applications that are relevant to their position or area of focus. Concise and Practical Skills Course. The course includes extensive lecture and visual materials; however, it is not intended to substitute for post-secondary instruction in legal research and writing for paralegals. This course is also not intended to be continuing education and is not qualified for such credit in any jurisdiction. The course focuses on paralegals in the U.S. and is intended to be a highly practical skill building overview useful both to paralegals in training who want to supplement their formal studies or current paralegals who want to sharpen everyday skills to help them improve performance on the job.A Look at Artificial Intelligence (AI). The course also introduces advanced technologies that have been around before but are increasingly finding themselves in the law office technology stack. Namely, this includes those that incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) or related tools such as natural language processing (NLP) or recommendation engines. It also encourages an open mind and creative attitude toward understanding and best using these future technologies. We take some time to demystify some AI nomenclature and then predict what the future of AI in legal tech may look like.

Overview

Section 1: Introduction & Overview

Lecture 1 Welcome to the Course

Section 2: Approach Legal Technology

Lecture 2 Efficiency and Automation

Lecture 3 Categories of Software and Apps

Section 3: Core Software & Applications

Lecture 4 Writing and Word Processing

Lecture 5 Other Office Applications

Lecture 6 Advanced Features for Legal Work

Section 4: Law Office Operations

Lecture 7 Law Practice Management (LPM) & Productivity Apps

Lecture 8 Document Handling

Section 5: Specialized Apps

Lecture 9 Practice Type and Area-Specific Apps

Lecture 10 Court and Agency Portals

Section 6: Communication and Collaboration

Lecture 11 Email, Voice, and Video Conferencing

Lecture 12 Instant Message and Asynchronous Tools

Section 7: Legal Research Apps

Lecture 13 Overview and Common Principles

Lecture 14 Smart Search Strategies

Section 8: Advanced and Next Generation of Legal Tech

Lecture 15 Process Development & Knowledge Management

Lecture 16 Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Document Analytics

Section 9: Review and Next Steps

Lecture 17 Skills Course Review

This course is beneficial to paralegals in training as well as currently qualified paralegals who want a refresher or to sharpen their skills.,This course is not for continuing paralegal credits and is not intended to substitute for an approved paralegal training program. It is important that all students research and understand the requirements of the state in which they plan to work as a paralegal and discuss qualifications with their prospective supervising attorney under whose specific direction they will work.,This course can be useful as part of orientation or on-boarding of new paralegals to law offices or in-house legal departments.,This course can also be useful to law clerks, legal interns, and lawyers