BRANDI HOBBS, ALS, DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION

What NALS Can Do for You

It’s important that we look at not only what our local chapter can do for us each month by way of our monthly meeting, but also what NALS at the national, regional, and state levels can do for us – and even at what our local members can do for each other!

As part of highlighting the benefits of NALS, especially the educational benefits, each month your board would like to bring to you a “Tidbit from the Membership” that someone you know– or could know – from the local chapter has created or adopted in the course of their daily/monthly/weekly job duties that may also help you in yours!

And we would encourage all of you to submit ideas to brandi.hobbs@dlapiper.com– either your own or a tidbit from someone you know who is willing to share –and help us foster networking and the proliferation of useful, job-related information as part of what NALS of Phoenix can do for you!

JUNE — This tip comes from Vernelle Collins, PP, PLS Emerita.  It is a tip about how to removing text boxes and/or frames after document conversion.

First, click twice on the text box.
From the menu choose text box.
At the text box menu select convert to frame.
At the message prompt click okay.
Now click on the frame.
Select the remove frame choice from the menu.

APRIL — Brandi Hobbs, ALS shares her Excel tip this month.  A simple “IF” statement in Excel,  =IF(x, [value if true], [value if false]), can make quick work of otherwise tedious tasks.  You would think of it as a way to say in your spreadsheet, if A1 equals 100, then A2 equals “Great job!”, but if not, then A2 equals “Needs improvement.”  These statements can also be combined to cover a broad range of options.  For example, in preparing worksheets to comment on how employees did, based on bonuses already earned, a formula can be used in the “comments” field to automatically generate certain statements based on certain values. For example: =if(cell=100, “good job”, if(cell>100, “excellent”,”needs improvement”))

This formula allows hundreds of individual fields to be completed with a simple IF statement that can be copied, instead of retyping a new entry for each row of data. If statements can be used with words, dates, numbers, monetary values, etc.

MARCH — This month we featured a tip from Kerie Trindle Byrne, PLS, CP and Tara Hughes, PP, CP.  Tara and Kerie created their own custom stamps for processing mail.  When they receive mail, they stamp the back with our own “received” stamp with the following information:

Family Law Received On: _________________
Reviewed by TMH: ______________________
Reviewed by KSTB: ______________________
Reviewed by DNH: ______________________
Copy to Client: _________Yes__________No
Sent to client on: _______________________

This ensures we have a record of when everyone in our department reviewed the document and when it was sent to the client.

At Kerie & Tara’s firm, they do not have a case management system.  So, Kerie & Tara created a stamp for ensuring addresses are updated everywhere in the system.  There is nothing like having a client update their address, and the address is updated in one or two places, but not everywhere.  So, Kerie & Tara created a stamp with the following information:
________ Labels
________ Outlook Contacts
________ Merge Data
________ E-mail PCLaw/Access

When I receive an address change either on a returned envelope, via e-mail, or some other means, I stamp the front and add my initials and the date to the lines on the stamp.  This ensures I don’t forget to change the address in one or more of these places.

FEBRUARY — This month we featured Kathy Sieckman’s Template for Court Filing Reminder Post-It® Notes. Print Kathy’s template on a plain sheet of paper, then attach Post-It ® Notes to the pre-printed squares, re-run through the printer on manual feed, and tah-dah! – you have reminder sticky notes for all of your filings! If you want a Word version of this document, click here.

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