PDF for Lawyers

Free PDF editor - can it really be useful?

I am not generally one to tout free or low-cost alternatives to Adobe Acrobat; today won't be an exception.  Nevertheless, there might be some point where you aren't at your computer (where hopefully you have a full version of Acrobat installed) and you need to make comments to a PDF.  In that case I can recommend that you try PDFVue (beta).  One person reports (on Twitter) that they use this program to fill out faxes that arrive in their office by email.  

So, if you find yourself in a MacGyver-esque situation then consider using PDFVue.  On the other hand, if you are frequently manipulating PDFs (and we hope you are), then stick to the full version of Adobe Acrobat.

Upcoming seminar on Acrobat - How to create forms

Rick Borstein and Mark Middleton putting on a free online seminar what will demonstrate the best ways of creating and using PDF Forms in the legal world.   The one hour seminar will focus on Acrobat 8, but most of the features will also work in Acrobat 7.  For more information about this August 9th event click here.

Civil Subpoena Form for Federal Court

If you need to fill out a subpoena form for use in a federal court proceeding, feel free to use this one.  I found it by simply searching online.  It has form fields, and even includes a place for a digital signature.  As much as I love digital signatures, I wouldn't use the digital signature in most cases because it looks strange to most people. 

Adobe adds bar codes to PDF forms

Interesting C/Net news article on Adobe's inclusion of bar-codes into PDF forms: "The technology, announced Monday, will allow faster processing of forms ultimately intended for printing. Early backers include the Internal Revenue Service, which will experiment with adding bar code capacity to several PDF-based tax forms this year." There is also a discussion of how bar-codes will facilitate electronic filing.

Here's a PDF form I'd like to fill out

This is a form that I'd like to have a good reason to fill out. I'd settle for being a good friend of someone who filled it out.

PDF forms for use with court filings

One of the great uses of Adobe Acrobat is the creation of forms. Acrobat lets you take any document and create form fields that you can fill out, save, and print. In other words, even if you have a paper form, you don't need a typewriter to fill it out. Just scan it and create form fields (using the form tool in Acrobat) and fill in as needed.

In litigation lawyers sometimes come across forms that need to be filled out. An example from federal court is the Civil Cover Sheet that must be filed along with any civil case. In Louisiana we are fortunate to have the Western District Court, whose website has several useful forms available in PDF format, including a Civil Cover Sheet.

If you don't have the full version of Acrobat then you can't save the form after you've filled it out, but at least you can fill it out (assuming that it is an "interactive" form, as the Western District of Louisiana court describes it). I don't see why a court would go through the trouble to put a PDF form online but not create the form fields so that the could be filled out, but then there are lot of things I don't understand.

Findlaw also has a great compilation of PDF forms for many federal and state courts. Check and see if there are forms for your state. Chances are they have some that you might find useful. If you want to find more forms just type "PDF court forms" into Google and see what's out there.

PDF Forms and XML

Interesting article by John Udell in Infoworld on Adobe's effort to fully integrate XML into the PDF format. The gist of the article is that Adobe's new Acrobat 6.0 is fully XML capable, which will mean that it is easier to move form data (from, say, tax returns) in and out of a PDF document. Even if you aren't intrigued by tech-arcana such as XML the article has a nice link to an interactive tax form, which includes the capability of handling digital signatures.