I remember this one day in particular, where I had one of my employees shadow me for a day at my client’s law firm. I wanted her to get use to drafting pleadings in a high pace setting and she did a great job. I noticed the first thing she did was try to start the pleading from scratch. Naturely, I let her do her own thing until I saw her taking a little too much time on trying to get the case caption accurate. My immediate response was, “Hun, just use a previous document”.  As wild as it may sound, sometimes as Paralegals we don’t have the time to reinvent the wheel. We need to jump on that train while it’s moving and the fastest way to do that, is by using a template. 

One of my biggest shortcuts to getting a pleading done is using a template. If your firm or clients do not have a template for various documents you can create one and then use that template going forth.  At a minimum, you should have a template for letters, memos and standard pleadings. Standard pleadings for each legal field will vary. Since we use WORD for drafting pleadings, copy and paste will become your bestie. Of course you should always pay attention to what you copy and paste and make sure it is appropriately suited for the documents you are using. For example, You can insert court captions, standard signature blocks, standard “Wherefore” paragraphs and other standard language into your pleading. This will definitely save you time when drafting documents because you will not have to search previous pleadings to get the wording right and this will help prevent against typos.*

The main purpose of this post is to get new paralegals comfortable with the fact that not everything is created from scratch. I know it can be very confusing when you are taught to do things from stratch and then told just use a template BUT believe me, the amount of time you save by using a template will be well worth the confusion.

*cited in part from Angela Gonzalex, SBWCP