Sign Mississippi Arbitration Agreement Easy

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body this is miss Johnson I just wanted to post a quick video about formatting captions so this is just kind of a nuts and bolts video in case anybody has never been in class with me where I talked about how to make the text look the way you want it to look on the page I've talked about this in my other classes but it's just a quick review so if you already know this feel free to ignore the video also I'm going to try and move pretty quickly to keep the file size as low as possible because obviously when you guys watch this you'll be able to pause and rewind and whatnot so so that's the only reason why I'm going fast because I know you guys will be able to watch it as often as you need to so first the standard in courts is Times New Roman 12 but you always want to look at the local rules to see what font style and font size the courts prefer sometimes they actually have a preference particularly in the appellate courts so you want to look up the local rules for the jurisdiction where you plan on filing the document start out with the name of the court which in our case is Circuit Court Tennessee we're in the 25th district yeah sorry I'm gonna have a whole bunch of typos cuz I'm kind of a lousy typist Fayette County okay so you'll see that it obviously a microsoft word at least in 2010 the default is to put this space in between the lines we don't need that mindset at double-spaced you can take it down to single space I think the factory default for Microsoft Word is to have a a 10-point automatic space after the paragraph so where it kind of looks like that even though you're set at single space it's a way to get rid of that yes to go here under the paragraph ribbon Home tab paragraph open up this little dialog box and then you'll see right here is the spacing before and after this will say ten or twelve just take it down to zero and then it'll get rid of that space okay so now so we're familiar with how the how the caption looks with the two columns where you've got the parties names on the left side and then the cap I'm sorry and then the docket number and division on the right side a lot of people do that using tabs or they just kind of hold down the space key to move text over that's not the best way to do it there are several ways to do it one way is by using columns under the page Layout tab and just set it at two columns I recently have started doing it in a different way and that's with the table so I'm on the insert tab under table and I'm gonna do a two cell table just like that so that way I've got my two columns my left side and my right side so let's do I'll be resident okay so something like that and then alright so I want to indent my title for the for the these this first party which is heavy resident and if I just hit the tab key you'll see that it jumps me over to this right-hand column what do you call this thing cell sorry jumps me over to the next cell I don't want to do that so if instead you can't see my keyboard what I'm doing is I'm holding down the control key as I hit the tab key if I do that then it'll put me where I need to be it'll just tab over whenever you're working inside a table the tab key will automatically jump you over to the next cell and so if you just want to insert a tab hold down control and then hit tab and it'll do that instead okay just a little tip okay you over here on the right side we've got the division number you've got the docket and we've got the jury demand the rules say that you've got to note in the caption every time whether or not there's a jury demand in the case can't remember if that's in the federal rules or the state rules but it's just kind of common practice to put that there so the judge knows on the very first page of the document that this is in fact a jury trial and it's not a trial that'll be it's not a case that will be tried by the judge okay so next you say well this is all the way at the top of the column I want to put it at the middle of the column the great thing about tables is you can format this entire cell which is awesome so you don't have to manually you know kind of hit the return key until you get it approximately in the middle don't do that instead just go over here to your table tools tab and click on layout and here you can choose how you want this cell to be laid out whether you want it right justified or left justified but you can put it you can Center it vertically within the cell like that it's also really easy to adjust the size of your columns you can just grab that centerline if you want to move it over and that can sometimes save you space so you're free to kind of make adjustments there as you see fit to make the caption look professional now say you don't want to keep this weird-looking box around your caption that's understandable just select the table and then on your Home tab you can remove all of the borders click no border right there if you want to keep your divider line then you can just go back in and include the inside vertical border like so yeah some folks say well I like the old-fashioned way with a little parentheses marks I personally hate that but if you like it that way or more importantly if that's the way your boss wants you to design the captions then that's you need to do so one easy way to do this if you're using the table format is to just add another column so over here and layout I've clicked in this first column or this first cell I should say I'm sorry and I want to add excuse me I want to add another cell right in the middle so I'll go insert right and you'll see it gave me another cell in here and I can always adjust it and make it super super tiny and then within that cell I can put my parentheses like that if that's the way you really want your document format it in which case of course you've got to go back in and remove the vertical border lines like so there you have it and you can still adjust this pretty easily by just grabbing the border lines which of course are now invisible but you can still grab them and moving like so okay again not there's just a matter of style but if you like a divider line horizontally above and below the parties which I personally do but every lawyer has his or her own style you can simply do it that way under the paragraph ribbon there is an option for horizontal line now some of you may be used to doing it this way hold down the underscore key and then hit return and it automatically becomes this full line now the reason I don't like that is because it's not actually a line it's a border and they can become pretty difficult to work with they can be kind of unwieldy especially if you want to remove it later you'll see it's kind of awkward you can't delete it sorry getting getting emails here so what I do instead is just insert a horizontal line because that is just like a paragraph character and you can format it however you like so what I did just now is right-click on that line the horizontal line and then I can change the color or the width or whatever I need to be I can also set the spacing I can do it too in a two-and-a-half spaces or one space or two spaces whatever just makes it easier to format the document now I'll do the same thing at the bottom okay so under the parties names would be the title of your document which is always centered now we are not writing a motion we are responding to a motion so you always in the title of your document you want to include who the author of the document is and what it is that they're submitting to the court whether it be emotional response or complainer or what-have-you so in our case we would put something like plaintiff's response in opposition to defendants motion to compel arbitration and to stay things right so you'll see that all I did was start out with plaintiff's response in opposition to and then I used the exact same title of the defendants document to which we are submitting our opposition then I need another dividing line under that and now I am ready to start drafting my complaint which will no longer be in bold and will no longer be in single no longer be single-spaced okay the body of your document is going to be double-spaced and everything in your caption is going to be single spaced I like my captions to be bold not everybody does that some folks do it you know just in regular text kind of up to you if you're in a work environment it will be up to your attorney who's gonna sign the thing but for now for our purposes I'll leave that up to you which you what you decide is best looks most professional I will okay so then you're gonna have your introductory paragraph is going to be here and I'll just put blah blah blah language for now that's gonna be your introductory paragraph then you're gonna have the different sections of your document so and those will be centered by the way you're hitting x' so you'll have a fact section and it and the titles of your sections don't have to be these exactly I'm just giving you a sample you'll have an argument section some lawyers say law and argument there call it others call it points law or you can call it goodness there's another one folks use I don't know I can't think of it right now but if you say law and argument or arguments or something points of law something along those lines that'll signal to the court that okay now we're moving from the facts to the law into your argument as to the interpretation of the law or application of the law then we'll have our conclusion and then we will have our certificates I can't spell it right service ok so there's basically more or less the sections that you'll have and yours again may differ from this so for example you might decide as appropriate to have an introduction section or whatever totally up to you depending on the type of document you're writing for our purposes this probably will suffice but depending on how your argument is structured you are absolutely welcome and free to make whatever adjustments to this you think would make your document more persuasive because that's the the end goal here is is obviously to persuade the judge there's a couple different ways to do it all right so in your facts section for purposes of the outline I mean you can just kind of summarize the facts here this is gonna be sort of informal right because we're just doing an outline this is not your first draft if you want you can do a bulleted list okay just however you find is easiest for you to handle in terms of making this be a working document that you can refer to and rely upon when going back and filling in the blanks for your first draft okay your lawn argument section is where you're that you're the real substantive legal outline is going to be so you want it to be an actual outline form so you can do ABC your one two three Roman numerals Arabic numerals however you you know see fit I tend to do to start with Roman numerals but again that's not necessary if you want to do it a different way um when you're doing your headings format this a little bit here so first of all these are just placeholders okay I do not want to see argument one argument two argument three in your actual outline instead you will have a sentence here or a phrase signaling to me what your first argument is or what your second argument is that's one way to organize it another way to organize it is let's say you have a particularly complex argument that needs to be broken down into into aggregate parts so you could do element 1 of your argument and an element 2 of your argument whatever you think again is is most conducive to a good understanding by the judge and whatever puts our clients in the best footing in terms of chances of being successful and opposing this motion right so these are all strategy decisions how you organize your your document will be dictated by what is most convincing what makes your argument easiest to understand and therefore most persuasive now within each argument you might have various sub arguments if that's necessary then do that I don't have your you know everybody's going to organize their argument slightly differently so you may or may not have subheadings underneath each of your headings there's no requirement necessarily it's just again whatever you think makes your argument most easily digestible but for example if you're if you're arguing that there's no contract because two of the elements of the contract are missing here then you might have section one is there is no contract so part one might be the elements of consideration is missing and then subpart two might be the element of mutual assent is missing or whatever the case may be I don't know I just made that up but you understand that that's how you wouldn't you would organize it and so now where do your cases come in let's say you are citing let's say your so part one let's say your first argument is no contract and the first reason there's a no contract is no mutual assent so then your first case might be you know Jones V Johnson ok so again I just made that up but let's say that's your first case and you cite that case and then you'll say something like something like that so this is what I mean by just explain briefly how you intend to use the case that you're citing ok so I've got the the full citation of the case right and you may even have a pin cite if you're if you're quoting exact language then you can include the pin cite like let's say it's you know the actual texture quoting is on page 460 that's a pin site and then just tell me what you plan on taking from that case why you've chosen to cite that case and I just have here you know this case lists the elements of a contract and it's going to our contract can be voided if any element is missing so again I just made that up it's an imaginary case but this is what I'm expecting to see in your outline and so under this first section you might have two cases and then maybe under subpart two you have cited three cases I don't know that excuse me then under your second argument maybe you cite two three more cases in a new your third argument maybe you cite two one case or what have you keep in mind that this outline is gonna be an internal document it's me looking at your notes so if you have reservations or if you see weaknesses in a particular case then you can feel free to include that in your outline too just as a notice to me so for example say the Jones case had some negative law in it that and help me or doesn't help our client so you might say something like I'm using this case because it cites the elements of a contract because it lists the elements of a contract however it might try to find a better case because this one has nothing to do with arbitration or you know something like that if you're thinking about axing a case or if you have reservations about it for whatever reason okay so hopefully that makes sense so that's what will kind of fill out your outline under the arguments section and then your conclusion we'll talk more about this in preparation for the first draft but just know for now that your conclusion is should be brief all that happens in the conclusion is that you sum up your argument very very very briefly and you state for the court what you want the court to do all right so it can be as simple as you know for all of the reasons noted above the court should deny the defendants motion to compel or whatever or you might want to really really briefly restate your argument 1 2 3 or however many arguments you have but it should ideally be one paragraph you don't need a bunch of case citations in the conclusion in fact I advocate when I teach lawyers that there shouldn't be any case citations in the conclusion it's just a real nice neat wrap-up so that if the court didn't have time to read your whole argument and just read the conclusion the court would know exactly what you want from that one paragraph all right so that's what I'm looking for they're really sure certificate of service is always going to have basically the same language in it it usually looks something like you know I certify that I have sent this document to opposing counsel and you give their address the certificate of service is absolutely critical because you are required under the rules under all civil procedural rules to confirm for the court that you have in fact sent a copy of this document to the other side in other words you can't file something with the court and not your opponents know about it whenever you file something with the court you've got to send them a copy and you have to declare within the document itself that you have in fact satisfied that requirement so I hereby certify that on such a such date 2014 a good accurate copy of the foregoing was forwarded va u.s. mail postage prepaid to the following counsel of record see if I can spell my words correctly all right it's not about the airplane probably can hear that so that's kind of typical standard wording it differs you know here and there but the main thing is you want to include the word certify because it is a certificate of service you have to include a date the date on which you're sending the document to opposing counsel you have to explain how by what means the document was forwarded to opposing counsel and you have to include the names of all the people to whom you're sending the document so in our case in our case that would be opposing counsel you never ever ever ever communicate with the party itself so you wouldn't send it to the defendant you would send it to the defendants lawyer which is David defense Esquire and then you can include his address and his phone number whatever it is okay now I with single spaces just because it makes it easier to read and then you need a signature line so you can do by and I'm using the underscore key to make my line and then I include the attorneys name the attorney who's gonna actually sign the document you want to include in any signature a bar number and the bar number I believe we have somewhere I can't remember if I provided you a fictional bar number for mr. Eyre so for now I'll just put xxx okay now one thing that I want to let me pause there and go back because after the conclusion and before the certificate of service we need our signature block which is very very very very important you'll see a demonstration and sample of a signature block on the defenses memo there it is right there that's the signature block and so we would just replicate something along those lines for our boss for our clients lawyer so it could be as simple as by doesn't have to be bold and then we need signature line and then what is her name Tracy Trier the phone number and a fax number and an email all of that is required under the rules so again signature block is single-spaced now how do we format this you don't want to do that and right justify it which I have seen people do however you don't want it left justified either you just want to take it over so that it's on the right side of the page but it's still gonna be left justified meaning the left side the leftmost edge of the text is all going to be aligned here so the way to do that is to select the entire block grab your your indentation marker here and scoot it over I'm putting mine at three and a half if you've got space you can put it it for or at three however you decide is best now here's one way you can do it you can isolate the word by and then I just hit the tab key and that way all of the actual block itself is aligned in the by where the the by intro is is isolated all right and so there's your signature block I think that's about it Oh last thing pagination I mentioned or I can't remember where exactly but I know if you've ever taken me in class before you will have heard this a million times but pagination is critical and my very very very enthusiastic advice to you would be to always paginate as page X of Y in other words so here's how you here's how you add your page numbers you're gonna insert page number for legal documents it goes at the bottom of the page typically in the center some reason why microsoft word is about to quit on me apologize there it is so word gives you a couple of defaults and you can always do something like this right where you've just got a single number at the bottom of the page well the problem with that in my opinion is that if you're missing a page at the end there's often no way to really know it and especially when you're filing a document oftentimes that very last page is the page that includes the certificate of service right so if you don't have a certificate of service you're going to be in big trouble with the court so instead just to kind of cya if you will rather than using the single number I always paginate as page X of Y so I'll show you what that looks like if my computer will cooperate so instead when all of these options scroll down a little bit more and you'll see this style about midway through it says page X of Y I put mine in the center and there it is so it gives you not only the page that you're on but also the total number of pages in the whole document and finally if I were to be really really nitpicky I would say make your footer text formatted consistently with the body text which means it should be also Times New Roman 12 o like so sorry that's my buddy Ike he's saying hello to everyone okay so that is kind of a quick rundown of what your outline might look like but again I I'm always hesitant to do samples for my students because especially for students who have never done this document before the temptation is to just stick very strictly to the sample and do everything exactly like it was done in the sample and I can't stress to you enough that you're not you're not limited to that I mean the formatting for a caption for example yes there there are conventions that you'll want to respect but as far as what your outline looks like you've got more way there I'd like to see you make some independent decisions as to how to organize your document and you won't be penalized for strategy decisions in this regard in other words if I have a suggestion as to a more persuasive way to organize your content then that's not necessarily going to count against you what'll count against you in this phase for the outline is if you have an incomplete document you have less than eight cases you have incomplete sections you haven't done you know included all the elements that I want you to include but I'm not so much checking you for mistakes here I will be giving you feedback so that you're in a better position you feel a little more comfortable and confident when you start articulating your arguments and full prose for the first draft okay right now I'll be checking the fifty points for the outlining cases is more of a completion check okay and a kind of a formatting check to make sure you know again what the documents supposed to look like what constitutes a professional presentation that sort of thing okay I hope all this is helpful and makes sense and as always if you have any questions just send me an email or post on the discussion board thank you very much you