Friday, 29th March 2024
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Useful Tools

On this page

Tools Highlights

  • A to Z Collection of Links to calculators and tools grouped alphabetically.
  • Desktop Detective Collection of Tools for finding out information about people both in Australia and overseas using the resources of the internet.
  • Legal Assistant Collection of Tools for legal assistants.

Boolean Searching & Search Engines

  • Bare Bones 101: A basic tutorial on searching the web
  • Google Advanced Search Terms for constructing sophisticated searches
  • Google - The Editor's personal favourite
  • Ask (or Ask Jeeves) - Allows you to search by asking plain english questions
  • Dogpile - combines a number of search engines into one.
  • Bing - better than most at searching images
  • WolframAlpha - aggregates information from a number of sources into a summary page
Western Australia 1 general useful tools boolean search legal research public notaries law societies legal strategy law humour law jokes

The Art of War

Wikipedia says "...one of the oldest books on military strategy in the world. It is also one of the most famous studies of strategy and has had a huge influence on Eastern and Western military planning, business tactics, and beyond."

Foolkit would add "and to the strategies of clever lawyers"

Foolkit would also match this with a favourite, "Getting to Yes" by Fisher, Ury and Patton. That one you will have to buy.

Writing Skills & Document Assembly

An excellent book on improving writing skills for everyone in a legal office is English Essentials - "The wouldn't-be-without-it guide to writing well". It is written by Mem Fox and Lyn Wilkinson and published by Macmillan.

Help Us Improve

Please give us feedback about your experiences using Foolkit and ideas for improvements.


 

Forms

Court Forms

See our courts pages for Court Rules and Forms.

State Government

WA Government Online Services
WA Governernment Agencies Forms

Land Titles

Foolkit discourages the Public from attempting any dealings with real property on the basis of the Forms alone. Please see a solicitor.

Links

More Links!!!! Aren't there enough in Foolkit for you in already? (Mostly from Federal Court)

Research Tools

Instapaper: This is a very simple free addition to your browser's toolbar. When you find a page that's interesting and you don't have time to read it, just click the button. If you select text before clicking then this is added as a text comment.Also useful if you are collecting information on a topic. Try out its feature like add a folder, move (to a folder), view text only, archive and print in a range of formats including 3 column newspaper style.

Interesting Articles Published by Law Firms

Lexology - you can also subscribe for a daily email of topical information. 

Precedents

It is beyond the scope and budget of this site to provide a set of free precedents.

The LIV Bookshop sells a wide range of copyrighted Victorian legal forms, available in hard copy and electronic form.

The The Law Society of NSW has a range of precedents that it sells. Although written for NSW Law, many are still of practical help for a Western Australian Solicitor. Prices vary.

Western Australia 2 general useful tools boolean search legal research public notaries law societies legal strategy law humour law jokes

Legal Research for Students

The Federal Court of Australia has a collection of links for Students on Legal research and citation guides.

They suggest that school, tertiary or local public libraries are often the best place to start your research.

The Australian Libraries Gateway provides easy access to contact details, web sites and catalogues of libraries.

For more advanced students there is Thinking Like a Librarian: Tips for Better Legal Research.

Legal Humour

Western Australia 3 general useful tools boolean search legal research public notaries law societies legal strategy law humour law jokes

Plain English Drafting

Clarity is a web site that fosters the use of good, clear language by the legal profession. They have articles that include some practical examples of plain language drafting.

Plain English Lexicon (link is in the last line) is a free download (I could only get the download to work in Internet Explorer). It is a guide as to whether or not your words will be understood and suggests alternative plain english words.