Creating and Building Clearly Legal has taught me a skill or two.

Hi Everyone, its Kristy from Clearly Legal.

I wanted to chat with you a bit about the skills I have learned as Clearly Legal.

Adobe, Caselines, Portals. They have all really come a thing, a required thing, since 2020. I have taught myself 99% of everything I know about PDF-ing, hyperlinking and uploading.

Mastering Document Management with Bookmarks Bates Stamps and Hyperlinking.

Adobe, Caselines, Portals. They have all really come a thing, a required thing, since 2020. I have taught myself 99% of everything I know about PDF-ing, hyperlinking and uploading.

Adobe allows you to bookmark. With bookmarking having essentially taken the place of Tab slipsheets (if you know, you know), learning how to create, edit, move, set destinations, rename, index...you name it, if it's an adobe bookmark detail, I know it and taught myself.

Alongside bookmarks, I learned to apply Bates stamps and paginate documents. Bates stamping is essential for organizing and identifying pages in legal cases. While bates stamping may not be a requirement, pagination is, and, like bookmarking, I taught myself and bates stamp most of the PDFs I work with now.

Of course, you have to hyperlink everything now, and ensure the hyperlink does not break. From hyperlinking an index to documents to hyperlinking cases and legislation...you guessed it, I taught myself.

Using Case Centres (Caselines) and the Portals

I also took on Case Centres and have taught myself uploading, renaming, moving documents, hyperlinking, ensuring the hyperlinking works, managing the Case Centre pagination and more. I can remove documents, I can hearing and trial prep, I can attend live hearings. And, yes, what I know, I have taught myself. I also taught myself a more in depth knowledge of the JSO (Judicial Services Ontario) than I had in traditional law, I taught myself the OCPP (Ontario Courts Public Portal) and I am ready to learn the new Court of Appeal portal

Canva, Social Media

When I am not working with a client doing clerking work, I have also taught myself the world of Canva, Reels and Stories. While this is social media and marketing, it is keeping me tech savvy and my clients happy.

Understanding Legal Concepts

Beyond the vast technical skills, I have expanded my knowledge in areas such as Security for Costs, Guardianships, and Remote Commissioning, and more. This is important because many of the projects I have worked on as Clearly Legal were outside of my job description in traditional law, which meant I did not get to clerk them. These legal proceedings and concepts are just 3 examples of how my job description has evolved and continues to evolve.

Building Confidence and Competence as a Law Clerk

Perhaps the most important lesson I have learned is developing confidence in my skills.

Competence and Confidence brings you savings, saved time and Clearly Legal. If you are ready to chat about what I might bring to your files, contact me at kristy@clearlylegal.ca  and we'll chat.