practical law customer user guide 2014 - vdu...

USER GUIDE

REUTERS/VIVEK PRAKASH

http://thomsonreuters.com/legal/united-kingdom/

http://uk.practicallaw.com/

USERNAME

PASSWORD

practicallaw.com

MY LOGIN REMINDER

http://uk.practicallaw.com/

Welcome to Practical Law. You are joining more than 100,000 other lawyers in firms, companies and public sector organisations around the world who choose Practical Law to help them advise faster and with confidence.

As a Practical Law subscriber, you will have access to a professional support team across all the major practice areas.

Our team creates and maintains thousands of online resources and is available to answer your queries.

This guide provides some hints and tips to help you make the most of Practical Law.

MAKE THE MOST OF PRACTICAL LAW

4 | PRACTICALLAW.COM

To get started, visit practicallaw.com. Click Log in in the top right-hand corner of the page and enter your username and password. If you haven’t received your log in details, please contact our customer services team (see the Useful contacts section at the back of this guide).

GETTING STARTED: LOG IN

CLICK THE PRACTICAL LAW LOGO AT ANY TIME TO RETURN TO THE HOMEPAGE

Did you know?Once you’re logged in, you will stay logged in, even if you close the browser window, unless or until you click Log out in the top right of the page.


Did you know?You can find key resources for in-house lawyers and public sector lawyers in dedicated ‘collections’ of resources. Click on the collection you wish to view in the UK practice areas tab in the mega-menu or on the UK homepage.

If you need a password reminder, click Remind me of my password on the log in page. You can make a note of your username and password on the inside cover of this guide for quick reference.

LOGGED IN VIEW OF THE HOMEPAGE


Manage your account preferences and sign up for our current awareness e-mails by clicking on My Practical Law in the main menu. Click View and edit your account, under My account.

GETTING STARTED: MY PRACTICAL LAW


You can access the same resources from both the global and UK websites. The only difference is the emphasis of the search and navigation. You can switch between sites at any time using the icons in the top right-hand corner of the website.

VISIT OUR UK WEBSITE:• If you regularly need to access UK law resources.• If you would like to be able to move easily between

UK practice areas and resource types, without having to return to the homepage.

You can still browse global resources including multi-jurisdictional guides from the UK website, via the Countries tab on the mega-menu. You can also search global resources from the UK website using the US search and global search buttons on any search results page.

VISIT OUR GLOBAL WEBSITE:• If you regularly work across borders.• If you would prefer a country-first approach to our

resources.• If you would like to be able to move easily between

UK and US practice areas, international resources and country-specific resources, without having to return to the homepage.


Make sure you never miss an important legal development by signing up to current awareness e-mail updates and alerts in a variety of practice areas. You can also sign up for general news e-mails and e-mails which help with business development. Here’s a quick guide to the e-mails available to you.

CURRENT AWARENESS: QUICK GUIDE


LEGAL UPDATESSummaries and analysis of regulatory and legal developments, written by our team of experts. Sign up to receive our weekly Law Department roundup e-mail, public sector update or choose from daily, weekly and monthly e-mails in the practice areas relevant to you. You can also view and search legal updates on practicallaw.com.

ALERTSThe daily legal headlines, allowing you to quickly identify important developments. You can also link through to underlying source material and related resources on our website.

‘NO NEW ITEMS TO REPORT’On some days there may be no items of significance to report in a daily e-mail update. You can choose whether or not you want to receive ‘no new items to report’ notifications in E-mail preferences.

MAGAZINESPLC Magazine e-mail is the online companion to our monthly hard copy magazine.

PRACTICAL LAW BRIEFINGThis monthly e-mail contains legal checklists written for non-lawyers in private companies – simply top and tail and send on to clients.

Did you know?Our team of non-practising lawyers monitor thousands of paper and website sources daily to identify developments that have a practical impact on the work of frontline lawyers. We use sophisticated trawling software which alerts us to changes in relevant information sources, and our people are involved in consultations so we know about changes at their earliest stages.


Click on View and edit e-mail preferences under E-mail preferences in My Practical Law in the mega-menu.

Enter your e-mail address and click Continue.

You can choose which e-mails you’d like to receive and how often. You can also choose the format of the e-mails and unsubscribe from those you don’t want to receive.

CURRENT AWARENESS: HOW TO SIGN UP


1. Tick the boxes of the e-mails you want to receive

2. Choose whether or not you’d like to receive ‘no new items to report’ e-mails

3. Choose to receive HTML (images and text) e-mails or text only e-mails

4. Click to save your e-mail preferences

4

1

2

3


SEARCH: THE BASICS

START YOUR SEARCH1. Start your search from the search box, which appears

at the top of every page of our website.

2. Search in allows you to limit your search to a particular practice area, or if you’re starting from our global site, a particular jurisdiction. Select your chosen area, enter your search term and click Search.

Once within a practice area, country or topic page, the search will only return results from that practice area or country by default. You can change to search within a different area by selecting a different option in the Search in dropdown menu.

You can use free text, exact phrases or other query modifiers in our search, as you would use in a Google search. If you enter more than one search term, the search engine will automatically perform an ‘AND’ search – meaning that it will only return a result if it contains all the terms you have entered.

2 1

5

4

3


VIEW YOUR RESULTS3. Your search results are displayed in tabs. The default

tab is Know-how, and displays practical guidance such as practice notes, standard documents and clauses that are created and maintained by our team of experts.

The Publications tab displays magazine articles from PLC Magazine or books from Bloomsbury Professional.

If you want to search our database of public deals summaries and AGM materials, click on the What’s Market tab.

REFINE YOUR RESULTS4. Your search results are displayed by relevance to your

search term. To view your results in date order, click Sort by date.

5. To refine your results, use the filters for resource type, jurisdiction and practice area, to the left of the page.

Expand and collapse the list of available filters in each group by clicking the arrow to the left of the filter group name or by clicking the filter group name itself. Clear all filters by selecting Clear all in the orange box above the filters.

• OR SEARCHSearch for resources that contain either one word or another, by entering ‘OR’ between search terms. For example, stock OR asset acquisitions.

• EXACT PHRASESUse double quotation marks around the phrase, for example “asset acquisitions”, to limit your search to that phrase.

• EXACT KEYWORDSSearch for an exact keyword by including a ‘+’ immediately in front of a word. For example, +contract.

• EXCLUDE WORDSExclude resources from your search which contain a certain word by entering a minus sign before the word. For example, -asset means you won’t return any resources that contain the word ‘asset’.

• WILDCARD SEARCHPerform a wildcard search by including an asterisk (*) in place of a missing word or words. This is most usefully used in combination with the exact phrase search, e.g. “share * agreement” will search for both ‘share purchase agreement’ and ‘share sale agreement’, among others.

ADVANCED TIPS

• SEARCH FOR A WORD IN THE TITLEFind articles with a particular word in the title by entering ‘intitle:’ before the word. For example, intitle:securitisation tax will find results with ‘securitisation’ in the title and ‘tax’ anywhere in the article. Note that there can be no space between the ‘intitle:’ and the following word.

• SEARCH FOR ALL TERMS IN THE TITLESearch for all terms in the title by entering ‘allintitle:’ before the words. For example, allintitle:companies bill will return only documents that have both ‘companies’ and ‘bill’ in the title. Note that there can be no space between the ‘allintitle:’ and the following word.

Did you know?The search engine automatically searches for synonyms and alternative forms of common words (e.g. a search for contract will include resources with the terms contracted, contracting, and contracts). The exact keyword modifier (+contract) and the exact phrase modifier (“asset acquisitions”) will override this behaviour.


RESOURCES: KEY FEATURES

Our resources include practice notes, standard documents and clauses, checklists and legislation trackers. Resources are created by our team using robust quality control and peer review procedures, and are continually maintained. Here are some key features to watch out for when using our resources.

1 2

3

4


1. CHECK RESOURCE STATUSIf the status of a resource reads ‘Maintained’, you can be confident that the resource reflects current law and practice. Our team makes significant updates to thousands of resources each year as part of our ongoing maintenance programme. Our maintained resources include practice notes and standard documents. Legal updates will show a published date as they are point-in-time resources.

2. VIEW RESOURCE HISTORYSee at a glance whether and why a resource has been updated following a development in law, regulation or market practice.

3. ASK A QUESTIONOur team is available to answer your queries about our resources – for example, if you’re unsure why a document is drafted in a particular way or what approach the courts or regulators are taking. We can also act as a sounding board on a tricky point. Simply click Ask a question which appears in the Actions panel on the right-hand side of a resource. For more information, see the Ask section of this guide.

4. ANNOTATE A RESOURCECreate your own notes on our resources and share them securely with colleagues with our Annotation tool. For more information, see the Tools section of this guide.

5. LINKING TO WESTLAW UK Subscribers to both Practical Law and Westlaw UK can now link from legislative provisions and judgments referenced in Practical Law resources to the full text of the statute, statutory instrument or case report on Westlaw UK. Our team has provided “in context links” which allows you to click directly through to the underlying consolidated case law and legislation.

5


RESOURCES: PRACTICE NOTES AND CHECKLISTS

Practice notes are clear explanations of current law and practice. They range from quick guides and overviews to detailed analysis for specialists.


Mitigate risk and make sure you’ve covered everything with our checklists and flowcharts. Checklists provide short and practical guides to key aspects of law and practice.

Did you know?All our resources have links to other related content and topics on practicallaw.com. The links appear on the right-hand side of the page.


RESOURCES: STANDARD DOCUMENTS AND CLAUSES

Standard documents and individual clauses are market standard precedent templates, with integrated drafting notes.


1

4

2

3

1. OPEN IN MICROSOFT WORDDownload and open standard documents and clauses in Word© for easy editing.

2. OPEN WITH FIRMSTYLEDownload our standard documents pre-formatted in your organisation’s house style using our FirmStyle tool, free as part of your subscription. If you’d like to set up FirmStyle or find out more, get in touch with our customer services team (see the Useful contacts section at the back of this guide).

3. FASTDRAFT YOUR DOCUMENTMore than 200 of our most popular documents are available in our automated drafting tool, FastDraft. For more information, see the Tools section of this guide.

4. VIEW RESOURCE HISTORYSee at a glance whether and why a standard document has been updated following a development in law, regulation or market practice. You can also use resource history to check how up to date your internal precedents are.


RESOURCES: LEGISLATION AND CASE TRACKERS

Follow the progress of important legislation and case law with our legislation and case trackers, in a variety of practice areas.

LEGISLATION TRACKERS

Legislation trackers follow the progress of consultations, draft proposals and draft Bills from first announcement to enactment.


CASE TRACKERS

Case trackers follow the progress of cases as they develop through the courts.


RESOURCES: WHAT’S MARKET

Get an instant snapshot of market practice with our search and compare tool. What’s Market allows you to search, compare and analyse a range of public deals and AGM materials, create custom reports and link to underlying public documents. All reports are downloadable into Word© and Excel©.

Click on What’s Market, listed on the Resources tab on the UK homepage or under Resources in the mega-menu, which takes you to the What’s Market homepage.

You can also access What’s Market through any search results page on the UK site. Switch to the What’s Market tab to show all What’s Market deal summaries and AGM notices relating to your search term.

1


1. Search for one of 13 different deal types

2. Refine your search using filters

3. Select up to 50 deal summaries and compare key terms

4. View summary and link to underlying announcements

5. Export comparison to Word© or Excel©

2

43

5


RESOURCES: MULTI-JURISDICTIONAL GUIDES

Find out how the law works in practice around the globe with our multi-jurisdictional guides. To view the guides online, click Multi-jurisdictional guides under Publications in the Resources tab in the mega-menu or under International in the UK homepage.


2014 TITLES INCLUDE:Arbitration Capital Markets Competition and Cartel Leniency Construction and Projects Contracts, Enforcement and Negotiation Corporate Crime, Fraud and Investigations Corporate Governance and Directors’ Duties Corporate Real Estate Data Protection Dispute Resolution Doing Business in... Employee Share Plans Employment and Employee Benefits Energy and Natural Resources Environment Establishing a Business in... Finance Insurance and Reinsurance Investment Funds IP in Business Transactions Life Sciences Outsourcing Pensions Private Acquisitions Private Client Private Equity and Venture Capital Public Mergers and Acquisitions Public Procurement Restructuring and Insolvency Structured Finance and Securitisation Tax on Transactions

EACH GUIDE INCLUDES:

COUNTRY Q&A CHAPTERSDetailed practical overviews of the legislation and developments in key jurisdictions, written in Q&A format by law firms. Select the relevant multi-jurisdictional guide and choose a country Q&A.

You can also access Q&A chapters via the Countries tab in the mega-menu. Click on a country to see relevant Q&A chapters for that jurisdiction.

CROSS-BORDER ANALYSIS ARTICLESSpecialist articles addressing hot topics and legal trends written by law firms. Select the relevant multi-jurisdictional guide and click the Analysis tab to see articles.

COUNTRY Q&A TOOLSCompare specific areas of law and regulation across the jurisdictions relevant to your business. Click on Country Q&A tools in the Multi-jurisdictional guides homepage and select the multi-jurisdictional guide you want to search. Choose the relevant question, select the jurisdictions and click Submit to receive a tailored comparison report.

COMING SOON


TOOLS: FASTDRAFT

FastDraft helps you to create documents faster by using shortcuts such as importing data from existing projects, from your contacts or from Companies House. It shares information from one document across a suite of relevant documents. FastDraft is included as part of a Practical Law subscription.

You can see which standard documents are available with FastDraft by looking for the FastDraft icon next to the resource. You can also select from a list of FastDraft documents: uk.practicallaw.com/0-364-5012. Click Start drafting to enter FastDraft.


In the FastDraft project dashboard you can see previous projects you’ve worked on. Click Create new project to see the full list of project types. You can also search for a document. Once you’ve chosen a document and project name, click Create new project.

You will be asked to answer a series of questions. Depending on the nature of the document, these questions can be anything from one to eight pages long. These are the key questions, which comprise the important data elements in the document, as well as create major changes.

To view the draft of the document, click View draft in the blue bar above the document. You can now work in draft view. Changes are automatically saved to the document, project summary and contacts list.

Once you have finished answering the questions or have revised the document, click the orange Word document button to view in Word©.


TOOLS: ANNOTATION AND FIRMSTYLE

ANNOTATIONAnnotation lets you create your own notes on Practical Law resources and share them securely with colleagues. Your notes appear at the top of the resource with your own branding and are confidential to your organisation.

Full history and edit details are stored for future reference. You can customise multiple groups of “readers” and “writers” to suit different areas of interest within your organisation, choose who can create or edit annotation note entries and enable read-only access for all or part of your organisation.


FIRMSTYLEDownload Practical Law standard documents and clauses preformatted to your organisation’s house style in Word© using our FirmStyle tool.

To get started, contact your account manager or visit uk.practicallaw.com/firmstyle and fill in the form on the right-hand side of the page. Your account manager will send you a link to our online application.

Fill out the seven-step application and choose from variations allowing you to customise your logo, address, font type and size, numbering style, contents, phrasing of introduction and change the coversheet layout.

When FirmStyle is set up you will see an Open in your FirmStyle option in the Actions panel.

Annotation and FirmStyle are free as part of your subscription. If you’d like to find out more, get in touch with our customer services team (see the Useful contacts section at the back of this guide).


RESOURCES: ASK

Our team of experts is available to answer your queries through our Ask service – free to subscribers. We can expand on what we have written, point you to useful resources and act as a sounding board on a tricky point.


ASK A QUESTION If you have a query, visit the Ask homepage or click the Ask a question button which appears at the top of most pages or in the Actions panel of a resource, and fill in the form provided.

BROWSE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERSIf you have a question about something, the chances are others will be interested in the answer too – that’s why we publish the questions anonymously, and our answers, on the Ask homepage (uk.practicallaw.com/ask).

You can browse questions and answers by practice area and join the conversation by filling in the Add reply form at the end of each question.


CPD: QUICK GUIDE

Gain up to 75% of your annual CPD requirement without leaving your desk. All our CPD resources are available as part of your subscription. Here’s a quick guide to our CPD resources. Visit uk.practicallaw.com/resources/cpd to find out more.


E-LEARNINGThe PLC Magazine Update Programme for corporate and commercial lawyers provides up to 12 CPD hours per year (75% of your annual requirement). Simply read PLC Magazine and answer multiple choice questions online.

PODCASTS, FILMS, WEBINARSGain unaccredited CPD points without leaving your desk by listening to our podcasts, webinars or films. Claim an extra 30 minutes by taking the online quiz at the end and print a certificate for your records.

TRAINING SESSIONSIf your organisation is accredited by the SRA to carry out its own CPD training, you can claim points for training sessions run by the Practical Law team about how to get the most from our website. Choose from one-to-one sessions, group presentations, remote guidance and on-site visits.

Did you know?We also run regular events, most of which are accredited for CPD hours by the Law Society and the Bar Council.


IN PRACTICE: SCENARIOS

As this is a specific question, start by searching across all of Practical Law. You should retrieve a mixture of resources relevant to your query.

If the search returns a large number of resources, use the filters on the left-hand side to narrow down results by resource type, practice area or jurisdiction.

Scenario: Can you claim for damage done to your property by neighbouring tree roots?


In this case the first result looks pertinent, so click on that practice note (uk.practicallaw.com/8-107-4454).

Use the table of contents at the top of the document to jump straight to points of interest. To return to the top of the page, or back to Contents, use the navigation options in the bottom left-hand corner. If you prefer to read the document without the highlighting all the way through, click Remove highlight in the Keyword box in the bottom right-hand corner.

This practice note includes leading case law and guidance. It also lays out what the next steps should be and summarises the key points for a claimant in a checklist.

The practice note then goes on to set out how any potential claim should be made and includes links to the relevant documents.

Assuming all of the relevant steps have been taken, click on Standard document, Letter before claim: common law private nuisance (uk.practicallaw.com/6-517-0428).

To make sure you comply with the guidance for completing this document, click View drafting notes only (which can be printed out) before opening this document in Word©.

You can trust that the document is up-to-date as it is marked as ‘Maintained’, but you can view recent changes by clicking Show resource history.

Before you fill in a Particulars of Claim, click on the link to a checklist within the Related content box, so you can see how to state your case.

View the checklist to make sure you have included everything of importance.

You may also want to see the very latest updates, or what other users have been asking our experts in this area.

Rerun your search and then click Sort by date (most recent first). Use the filters on the left-hand side of the page to show legal updates and Ask queries.


IN PRACTICE: SCENARIOS

As this answer is likely to fall within the Commercial module, click on the link to the practice area from the UK homepage.

You’ll see a list of topics on the Commercial homepage. If you’re not sure which topic your query would fall under, you can search across the practice area.

Search for “advertising keywords”. You will see that your search is limited to Commercial resources.

When your search is returned, the filters on the left-hand side of the page show the resources that are available and the sub-topics.

The first returned search result looks relevant for your enquiry. Click on the practice note. It outlines what keywords and metatags are and lays out how they should and shouldn’t be used.

Scenario: In a recent internet search for your organisation’s name, a competitor’s product is returned. It is likely they have used the name of your organisation as one of their advertising keywords. Can they do this?


At the end of the practice note is a helpful summary containing some practical points for consideration. It contains a link to another practice note warning about the consequences for unjustified threats, which is worth reading.

This detailed practice note sets out exactly what you need to do and consider.

In the same way as the previous practice note summarised useful practical points, this document contains a flowchart of how to take an IP threat action.

If you now want to proceed with an action for trade mark infringement, you will need to draft a letter of claim.

Click the Top link in the bottom left-hand corner of the page to go back to the top of the resource. Links to relevant standard documents can be found on the right-hand side of the page.

Choose the relevant document and use FastDraft to quickly and easily create a letter.


USEFUL CONTACTS

Request training [email protected] +44 20 7202 1220

View tutorials, FAQs, register for bite-size lessons and request training

Ask a question If you can’t find a particular resource or have a query about something we’ve written, contact us by clicking on the Ask a question button and fill in the form provided.

General enquiries Our customer services team is available weekdays 8.30am to 7pm (GMT).

E-mail, call or get in touch on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/PracticalLawUK

mailto:[email protected]

“Practical Law know-how services are second to none. They employ experienced former lawyers with specialist expertise and it shows in the quality of their materials.”

ROBBIE DOWNING PARTNER BAKER & MCKENZIE

2014

Practical Law is a legal solution from Thomson Reuters.Whether you practise, support, create or enforce the law, Thomson Reuters provides best-of-class legal solutions. We integrate unrivalled content, technology and expertise to help legal professionals practise the law, manage their organisation and grow their business. We offer solutions for legal research, current awareness and know-how, including Practical Law, Westlaw UK and Sweet & Maxwell, as well as a suite of software, workflow and practice management tools, including Thomson Reuters Elite, Serengeti and Solcara Legal Search.

To learn more about legal solutions from Thomson Reuters, go to legal-solutions.co.uk

http://thomsonreuters.com/legal/united-kingdom/

practical law customer user guide 2014 - vdu...

Documents