Tom’s Tuesday Tech Tip: Keep Your Words Your Own – Send Your Legal Nurse Consulting Reports as PDFs, Not Word Documents
A common question I get from Certified Legal Nurse Consultants is whether or not you should supply your legal nurse consulting work product to attorney-clients as a Microsoft® Word document or as a paper printout.
I’ve never been a fan of letting an editable document out of my control. Not only do you run into issues where different users/recipients have different versions of Word software and suffer formatting issues, but you also have the very real concern that your words may be edited and end up not being your own. That is especially unsettling to me if my name is on the document or the document is on my letterhead. Attorneys, like everyone else, prefer to have paper printouts to work from so that we can highlight, make notes, etc. We also like to be able to reproduce a clean copy after we ruin the first one by writing all over it or dripping Russian dressing from our Reuben sandwiches on it while we eat lunch at our desks.
There is a way to solve everyone’s needs (beside offering extra napkins). Send the document to the attorney in portable document format (PDF), a file format created by Adobe Systems back in the early 1990s. Any document created as a PDF will maintain its formatting no matter what printer is used to print it or what computer is used to view it and you can also restrict whether or not someone can cut and paste or edit the document. Most people use the free Adobe® Reader to view PDF files (which restricts cutting/pasting) but to create PDFs, you once needed to buy a full or professional version of Adobe Acrobat which will integrate into Microsoft Word 2007.
A free alternative is Bullzip PDF Printer, a program that allows you to create PDF documents from just about any Microsoft Windows program, including earlier versions of Word. Bullzip PDF Printer installs and operates as if it is a printer. You simply print to Bullzip PDF, supply the output file name and it will create the PDF file for you. Anyone with the Adobe Reader can open, view and print the file and it will look exactly as you intended.
Simply set your PDF document properties (protection level) and email it to your attorney-client. Now you can sleep without worrying about what’s happening to your legal nurse consulting work product after it has left your control.
Thank you for the information. Everything that I send is in PDF format; letter agreements, reports, invoices, etc. It is well worth the time to download application to convert to PDF and make it a part of your processes.
Very useful information. I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on the use of Casemap/Timemap software to create reports. Many attorneys use this software as well as CLNC® consultants to share case work.
Excellent advice! I would be lost without my Adobe program.
In addition to making read-only documents, I also enjoy the other security features. There is a little less worry that sensitive information will be easily accessed by an unauthorized person, when using the password security features that are available. In today’s healthcare and legal fields, privacy is a key concern. It’s terrific that we have tools available to keep things private and restricted to only those that need to know and use the information.
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The National Alliance of Certified Legal Nurse Consultants (NACLNC®) is the largest and oldest association of legal nurse consultants.
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*The opinions and statements made by Vickie Milazzo, the founder of Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. are based on her experiences and expertise, should not be applied beyond the specific context provided, and do not guaranty or project actual results. Vickie Milazzo is no longer involved in the operations or management of the business, but is involved as an independent education consultant.
Keep on techin’,
Tom,
Thank you so much for this information. The protection status the pdf awards is truly peace of mind when sending documents to attorneys.
Tom,
Thank you for the information. Everything that I send is in PDF format; letter agreements, reports, invoices, etc. It is well worth the time to download application to convert to PDF and make it a part of your processes.
Very useful information. I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on the use of Casemap/Timemap software to create reports. Many attorneys use this software as well as CLNC® consultants to share case work.
Excellent advice! I would be lost without my Adobe program.
In addition to making read-only documents, I also enjoy the other security features. There is a little less worry that sensitive information will be easily accessed by an unauthorized person, when using the password security features that are available. In today’s healthcare and legal fields, privacy is a key concern. It’s terrific that we have tools available to keep things private and restricted to only those that need to know and use the information.