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Mastering Outlook to Increase Productivity
Texas Lawyer
November 16, 2009
Dimitri Vervitsiotis, Getty Images
By combining some of Microsoft Outlook's best undiscovered features with a little ingenuity, a lawyer can slash her stress level and perhaps add a bit of leisure time to her schedule. For starters, few users know inbox subfolders are not just for e-mails. Almost anything can be dragged and dropped into a subfolder and stored there -- from Word documents to PDFs to DeskSite links. That's just the beginning of what Outlook can do for lawyers and legal staff.
Put templates to work. Some lawyers do not realize Outlook offers templates that are analogous to Word templates. Many who do know about them believe they are too complicated to bother with. To the contrary, 30 minutes spent mastering Outlook templates can result in huge overall time-savings.
Docket without hassle. Firm staff commonly use Outlook's appointment feature for docketing deadlines and court dates. But the standard process of creating a new meeting request for each deadline and sending it to the working group for the case is often inadequate. Perhaps one judge's scheduling order departs from applicable rules -- for instance, by imposing a shorter deadline for motion responses. How is a busy lawyer with a long list of pending cases supposed to remember to figure response deadlines differently in one of his cases? How is he to ensure every essential person receives the docket entry when the working group list for a case changes?
To solve these dilemmas, stop reinventing the wheel. A template can serve as a ready-made, case-specific shell for docket entries. It can include case name, docket number and any other information the lawyer needs -- including a passive reminder about the judge's specific requirements. It can be pre-addressed to all the lawyers and assistants who work on the case, and when team members change, it is a snap to update the template (although existing docket entries will still need to be edited and re-sent individually).
Make repetitive e-mails easy. For frequent e-mails to specific distribution lists, contact groups are all well and good. But an e-mail template allows the user to include not only a recipient list, but a subject line, bcc recipients, message text and attachments. Though especially helpful in large cases, e-mail templates can streamline distribution in any case, regardless of size.
To make an e-mail or docket entry template, create a new item in the usual way. Instead of sending it, click on "File" in the menu bar and select "Save As." In the file-saving dialogue box, change "Save As Type" to ".oft." (The location Outlook saves to will automatically change to a template folder.) Name the template, and click "Save."
To access a template, click on the down arrow next to the new mail message (or calendar entry) icon and select "Choose Form." In the dialogue box, change the "Look In" dropdown to "User Templates in File System," and a list of locally stored templates will appear. Double-click on the desired template, and a new entry based on that template opens.
To revise a template, follow the process for using it, and make the changes. Use the "Save As" procedure to save over the previous version.
Power Outlook users can access their templates faster by making a new toolbar. For this column, I'm keeping it simple and won't get into toolbar creation, but Tech Republic has an excellent tutorial: http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-6346_11-5178650.html.
Turn off responses to docket entries. One disadvantage of using Outlook's meeting request feature for docketing is that the sender's inbox tends to fill with unwanted "Accepted" e-mails from docket entry recipients. There is an option to not send a response when accepting a meeting, but most people don't select it. However, there is an easy solution: After clicking the "Invite Attendees" button in the new meeting window, click "Actions" on the menu bar and uncheck the "Request Responses" option. This option cannot be changed globally, but templates can be set to never request responses.
Get a date, fast. Outlook's date calculation feature is a godsend for lawyers and their assistants. Start a new appointment for the date on which the calculation should begin, delete the date in the "Start Time" field and, rather than typing a new date, enter a simple formula specifying a number of days, weeks or months, and the correct date appears. To calculate future dates, use a plus sign; for backward calculation, use the word "before." Some examples:
15 days before
+ 20 days
3 weeks before
Signatures are for more than just signing off. For quick access to boilerplate text, there is a method even easier than templates. Outlook supports a virtually unlimited number of signatures, and they work just as well for message text as they do for closing a message. To create a new signature, select "Options" from the "Tools" menu and select the "Mail Format" tab. Click "Signatures" and then "New." Name the new signature, click "Next," and in the "Edit Signature" dialogue box, type boilerplate text and click "Finish," then "OK." To insert a signature into a message, click "Insert" on the menu bar, scroll down to "Signature" and make a selection from the list.
Microsoft Outlook is not perfect, but there is more to its e-mail and calendar functions than meets the eye. It is a powerful tool that lawyers and their staffs can use to eliminate many routine annoyances from their day and significantly narrow their margins of error.
The Assistant-at-Law has worked for law firms large and small, in various capacities, for more than 15 years. Currently, she is a legal secretary for a Texas-based international firm. Have a question for the Assistant-at-Law? Readers who mention this column will receive a bonus Outlook tip.
