What Makes a Job Legal

Although many of our clients submit general jobs that contain legal information (such as letters, memoranda, etc.), it's important for typists to know which jobs MUST be submitted on a legal account and typed by a legal typist.

If a job contains Legal Citations or a Pleading, it must be completed by a legal typist on a legal account. See Pleading or not a pleading? for help determining whether a document is a pleading.

Help Ticket

If you are a general typist and you receive a job that seems to be a legal pleading, or it contains legal citations, you must open a Help Ticket with a request to recategorize the job as legal. Jobs containing these elements must be submitted on a legal account in order to ensure they are typed by legal typists. Note: Letters/memos/notes, etc. that contain legal terminology do NOT qualify as legal jobs and may be typed by a general typist.

If the Help Desk is closed, please submit the job as a partial, with explanatory Comments to Proof that the job requires a legal typist, but you are unable to open a help ticket. See How to Reject to Client.

Legal Information for General Typists

Because a lot of our general clients do submit jobs with legal information, it may be helpful for general typists to review the legal pages. General typists are expected to appropriately format case names (see below) and simple names of legal authorities (such as Labor Code § 5710). Additionally, legal terms that are included in the SpeakWrite Word List should be spelled as seen there.

Case Names

There are two kinds of case names:

Client gives the name of his/her file (social service workers, financial advisors, lawyers), which may appear in a heading or in a Re line. (These don't need any special formatting.)
Legal case names, which are the actual names or titles of a lawsuit, and are required to be underlined or italicized.

The most common form of a legal case name:

Jones v. Smith.

In SpeakWrite jobs, we always use "v." for "versus" in a case name, not "vs.", unless the client requests another formatting. When the entire case name has been dictated in a document, it should be underlined or italicized, typist's choice, unless the client specifies a format.

Legal Terminology

Legal Typists

Legal typists are expected to be familiar with all types of legal terminology, and to be able to use them correctly when a client dictates them. This includes most Latin legal terms.

If the client dictates a legal term you're not familiar with without spelling it, and it doesn't appear in the OLH, the client's word list or in the SW Word List, you are encouraged to consult http://thelawdictionary.org/ (Black's Law Dictionary online) or the reference of your choice.

General Typists

General typists are not expected to be familiar with legal terminology. If unfamiliar legal terminology is dictated in a general job, please check both the client's and SpeakWrite's word list or follow any oral spellings provided. Otherwise, you can attempt a phonetic spelling or use **** in place of the word if a phonetic spelling isn't possible.