Why Law School Applicants Should Use MS Word and not Google Docs

Microsoft Word.

Microsoft… anything. I know, it seems too antiquated in a world of Google Drive.

I love Google Drive too and use it for some things.

But when a document needs a lot of formatting and the best Track Changes and Commenting tools, my go-to is still MS Word.

More importantly, future lawyers still need to master MS Word. And by master, I mean know it cold.

A whole generation of applicants has grown up using Google Drive for schoolwork, and it’s a shift and a pain to have to work in MS Word all of a sudden. I get it.

The reality is that many legal employers and courts in the US still insist on MS Word.

But what about those conversions from Google Docs (or Pages… just no) to MS Word when you’re done with your work product? Can’t you just do that instead and call it a day?

No. DO NOT RELY ON CONVERSION from Google Docs to MS Word.

I’ve seen formatting get messed up way too many times. You think you’re being clever by using the conversion tool, and maybe you think the recipient won’t notice, but it can make a hash of things and create more work for everyone involved and then you’re not looking so clever.

And as a lawyer, conversion from Google Docs into MS Word can get you into serious trouble.

Take a few minutes to read this piece in full (“Google Docs versus Microsoft Word: Attorneys blame 'technical incompatibilities' for late filing”). Really, it’s worth it.

This part jumped out at me, which quotes from an important court filing:

“Plaintiffs have employed a team of lawyers to prepare their responsive brief.?During the course of preparation, Plaintiffs' counsel have encountered numerous technical incompatibilities in the software versions between Google Docs and Microsoft Word resulting in editing difficulties and text problems.

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs request an extension of one hour of the deadline for filing their responsive brief.”

[emphasis added]

I read that and had to rub my eyes and reread it about five more times to make sure I was really seeing a Federal court filing in which the attorneys for a sitting member of the United States Congress, suing the Vice President of the United States, told a Federal District Court that they needed a one-hour extension because they were having trouble getting Google Docs and Microsoft Word to play nicely together.

The most startling thing was finding a lawyer who even acknowledged using Google Docs. For those in the legal community, Microsoft Word is not just a de facto standard; in many cases it's the de jure standard as well. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, for example, notes on its?Attorney Info page?that it is "a Microsoft Word only court." (The page helpfully includes Word document templates in different fonts, none of which is Comic Sans, as well as instructions for saving WordPerfect documents in Word format.)

On Twitter, I conducted an?informal survey of lawyers, and the results were decisive. Out of 69 responses, 57 (83%) said they and their law firms use Word exclusively. This comment, from a New Jersey-based lawyer, was representative: "I have never used Google Docs in law school or as an attorney. We always use Word. No court or firm for which I've worked uses Google Docs."

So yes, I know it’s a pain to re-norm your habits and tools for creating written work — and collaborative work — around a different system. And if we weren’t talking about future lawyers, I’d say, eh, you’re good, keep doing what you’re doing over in Google Docs.

But for aspiring lawyers, the sooner you get comfortable, then proficient, then expert at MS Word, the better. At least for the foreseeable future.

And do not — !!! — call yourself proficient in MS Word in the Skills section of your resume if you’re still hitting the space bar to align up those dates along the right margin. The “ruler” in any word processing software is a very basic formatting tool, and if you don’t know how to you use it, you are far from proficient in that software or in word processing more generally. See my little how-to here.

MS Word isn’t scary, I promise. You’ll pick it up in no time.

Edited to add this feedback from Tami Lefko, who has taught legal writing at Pepperdine Law School and USC Law School: “Yep — I included MS Word instruction as part of my Advanced Legal Writing class because law students don’t know how to use it effectively.” You can get way ahead of the game if you master MS Word as an applicant and hit the ground running in your 1L Legal Writing & Research class.