Excited to share this legal-writing Venn as folks and groups mark #DataPrivacy day. This post covers first principles, context, and tips on how we can continue to recognize and mitigate identity theft risks in that part of our legal writing that makes its way into public court filings. [Spoiler: Another Michigan privacy court rule kicks…
Category: Electronic file formatting
The (fixable) access to justice problem of image-only .pdfs
Ever wonder why it’s a best practice for scanned .pdf files to be text-recognized (OCR’d) before they are shared? Let’s look at these two critical considerations. (There are more but I’ll stop at two.) First. A scanned-only document displays like a picture. It’s an image that you can only look at. You can’t “use” or…
Digital file names should inform
— not confuse. Every organization and each person has their own “system” for naming the electronic files they save on their own drives. This post is not about that. (Though I am available for organizational consultations.) This is an invitation to think about how you should go about naming digital files intended for the public…
“Let the clicked-on record reflect”
Hyperlink with care. When writing a brief, opinion, report, or other type of permanent document, including hyperlinks to online sources requires thoughtfulness and an eye toward future years. As a default best practice, writers should use perma.cc to create preserved and short links. Why? Think back to why you want to add the link. Hyperlinks…
Show off those electronic bookmarks!
You want your readers to see your bookmarks if you are in the elite 21% who made the effort to create them. (And there is no excuse to not create bookmarks!)