Appellate Advocacy: Online Tools for Preparing Appellate Briefs

Procertas offers a Legal Technology Assessment (LTA) which is a series of training modules and assessments designed to help legal professionals become more proficient at using Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat. The Procertas LTA provides 'competency-based' training and assessment. For each task there is a demonstration video, a practice task, and then a separate assessment.

Procertas has a training and assessment module for creating and editing legal briefs using Microsoft Word. The module includes the following tasks:

• View Navigation Pane, Select and Update Headings
• Modify Heading Style Using the Navigation Pane
• Generate Table of Contents Using Styles
• Generate and Modify Table of Authorities
• Mark Citations and Update Table of Authorities
• Format Tab Stops
• Use Window/Orphan Control
• Insert Non-Breaking Hyphen
• Insert Section Break
• Insert and Format Shape
• Convert Text to Table
• Format Table Using Table Layout Ribbon
• Format Page Numbers
• Export or Save as PDF

As part of the training modules each task has a short "teach me" video that demonstrates how to accomplish the task using Word. Students can utilize these videos without having to take the related assessment or complete the training.

The Law Library provides access to the LTA for all Loyola Law students, faculty and staff. Individual login credentials are required to access Procertas. Contact Joe Mitzenmacher, Reference and Electronic Services Librarian (jmitze1@luc.edu or ext. 5-6844) to set up your own account.

There are a number of free online sites aimed at assisting lawyers with Microsoft Word. One of the best is the Legal Office Guru website and blog (https://legalofficeguru.com/blog), created by legal technology expert and trainer Deborah Savadra. The site and accompanying blog include a number of free tutorials. Two of the most popular are:

• Table of Authorities - The Ultimate Guide: (https://legalofficeguru.com/table-of-authorities-ultimate-guide)
• Table of Contents: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know: (https://legalofficeguru.com/table-contents-ultimate-guide)

Lexis and Westlaw both offer tools for integrating research and drafting. These include research-related features like automatically generating a table of authorities or cite-checking an entire brief.

• Lexis for Microsoft Office is a download that integrates many Lexis features into Microsoft Word.
• Westlaw TOA Builder is a separate Westlaw tool that allows one to upload a brief and automatically build and cite-check a table of authorities

Books:

• Loyola University Libraries provide access to a number of books and eBooks on Microsoft Word, Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat and other drafting software. For example, there are nearly 200 eBooks with 'Microsoft Word' in the title. The best way to search is to go to the main LUC Libraries page (libraries.luc.edu) and choose the Advanced Search option below the search box.

Infobase Learning Cloud System:

• LUC's Infobase Learning Cloud System is an online, on-demand training site that offers 50,000 tutorial videos on over 250 technology applications including Microsoft and Adobe products. You will need a valid Loyola UVID to login. Access is provided by Loyola Information Technology & Research Support.

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Email

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