Microsoft Word for Lawyers: Tips and Tricks That Every Lawyer Should Know

Microsoft Word, much like an iceberg, hides the majority of its powerful features beneath the surface, out of sight to many. This aspect is particularly relevant to legal professionals who constantly work with a wide variety of documents and, therefore, require more advanced text editing tools. 

Nevertheless, becoming proficient with Word’s shortcuts and tools can significantly streamline one’s workflow in the future. This guide seeks to aid legal professionals in uncovering and leveraging the often-overlooked capacities of MS Word for lawyers, leading to heightened efficiency in their practice.

One of the reasons Word is a dominant text editing tool among legal pros is because “Most professionals learned how to use this tool while attending school,” Berlinda Bernard, a paralegal, writer, and blogger for Quintessential Pillar. It’s true that most of us know the basics of Word from before our careers began, which sometimes acts as a trap: many of us think we know how to use Word, but in reality, we haven’t even started digging further since school. 

Keep in mind that even the most experienced drafters can spend years not realizing there’s a primary shortcut for what they do manually over and over again. So make sure you know MS Word tips and use these shortcuts.

Use the Macros feature to create your own tailored shortcuts. This guide will discuss Macros in Microsoft Word hacks further. 

Keeping track of word count is a good habit of any disciplined writer. To keep track of word count in MS Word:

Documents with clean, consistent legal formatting in Word express true professionalism and attention to detail. Unfortunately, getting a messy document into a proper look is a nitpicky, monotonous task that often takes too much time and effort. Word Styles is a game-changer tool for conveniently formatting your documents.

Word Styles are handy for drafting documents, but their power is limited when you face a foreign, messy doc or a new type of formatting.

Lawyers have a love-hate relationship with lists. A transparent numbering system makes contracts readable and easy to follow, but managing and editing lists can be a painful experience. Microsoft Word functions contain numbering, but its instruments often need to work more intuitively. A little misclick or extra Enter tap can ruin your entire numbering system. Still, if you master these aspects of numbering in Word, you will lift a tonne of text editing weight off your shoulders. And it means that you need these tips for Microsoft Word.

Creating a numbered list is simple: click the list icons in the Home tab. Of the three list icons, the one on the left manages bulleted lists, the one in the center is for numbering, and the one on the right is for multilevel lists. You will probably use the right one most often. If none of the default list options satisfy your needs (which is often the case), click Define New Multilevel List at the bottom of the Multilevel List menu. The screen with new list settings will pop up.

On this screen, you can set up all the characteristics of your new list. The best way to avoid a shuffle is to create reusable templates of numbered lists for all the document types you deal with the most. Look at what you can set up in the Define New Multilevel List menu.

If your job involves contract negotiations or dealing with other parties’ lawyers, you have probably already heard about the Track Changes tool as part of Microsoft Word tips. This feature allows you to mark every correction made to the document so that when you send the agreement to the other party, they see all your corrections.

To use the Track Changes tool for contract negotiations:

1. Click on the Review tab and turn the Track Changes toggle on.

• If you can’t activate the feature, go to Review -> Restrict Editing -> Stop Protection to allow tracking.
• This feature should be turned on before you begin editing the agreement, and you should ensure that your counterparts do the same.

2. Once activated, all deleted text will be marked with a strikethrough, and all edits will appear as underlined text.

3. You can change how the updated text is displayed by:

• Clicking the Mark-up Options.
• Pointing to Balloons and clicking on Show All Revisions In-line. The changes will now be displayed as tabs in the text.

4. Hide some changes from the Track Changes view to simplify the viewing process.

• Click on Mark-up Options and select any correction types (Comments, Ink, Insertions and Deletions, and Formatting) that you want to make visible.
• Remember that the recipient of your edited document will still be able to see all your changes.

One essential Microsoft word tips and tricks to help save time and increase efficiency in your legal writing process is to use the Quick Parts feature. Storing perfectly written clauses or paragraphs will save you precious time in the future, and you should start doing that if you haven’t already. Instead of copying and pasting paragraphs across documents, use Quick Parts to save these elements right into your Quick Parts Gallery in Word.

Quick Parts sits in the Insert tab under the Text section. To create a new element, select a part of your text that you’d like to save, click Quick Parts, then AutoText, then Save Selection to AutoText Gallery. You can now insert this text part into any document in the future by going to AutoText Gallery and selecting it from the list.

If you are tired of typing specific symbols or words manually and often think, “Why isn’t there a shortcut for that?” we have great news for you. Word’s Macros feature lets you create shortcuts of your own! To do that, click View in the ribbon tab, then click on the Macros drop-down menu (far right corner), then click Record Macros. Word will then ask you to name the new Macros (name it so you can understand what the shortcut stands for) and pick a keyboard combination as your new shortcut. Follow through and click OK.

When the recording has started, type what exactly you want to replace with a shortcut in the Word sheet. Then go back to Macros and click Stop Recording. Voila! Your daily paperwork has become one shortcut easier.

For lawyers dealing with confidential client data, it’s crucial to ensure sensitive metadata is removed from documents before submission. Metadata includes information not directly written in the text but present in the file, like comments, editor’s name, or invisible links. 

To inspect metadata, go to File -> Info -> Check for Issues -> Inspect Document. If using Word 2016 or older, click Check for Issues and Inspect Document. Choose the metadata categories to inspect and hit Inspect. Document Inspector shows all metadata found categorized. Delete any information you deem unnecessary, save it, and rest assured.

Microsoft Word wasn’t primarily designed for legal professionals so that they could fill, for example, Lease Agreement template; its tools might sometimes fall short of legal documents. However, a variety of add-ins are available to expand Word’s functionality. These can be found and installed via the “Get Add-ins” option in the “Insert” tab. Already installed add-ins are managed through the “My Add-ins” menu. 

By maximizing these capabilities and add-ins, Microsoft Word can help you write a professional-looking report. These add-ins in Microsoft’s Store cover many specialized tasks, from proofreading to contract review.

The capabilities of Microsoft Word are vast and versatile, but as you familiarize yourself with it, you’ll undoubtedly uncover more valuable shortcuts and tricks. This guide aims to facilitate a smoother, more efficient experience with Word.