We’ve all done it: write a 40-page brief only to realize we’ve consistently spelled a party name, case name, or statute wrong. This is a nightmare without Word expertise, of course. One quick fix can make you feel like an expert: “Ctrl+Shift+H”.

The find-and-replace function on Word lets you find the misspelled word or phrase, and select the word or phrase you would like to replace it with. For example, if I meant to type Tinker v. Des Moines, but consistently spelled the case Tiker v. Des Moines, I would (1) click “Ctrl+Shift+H”, (2) type in the incorrect spelling, and (3) type the correct spelling into the replacement box. After executing this function, all incorrectly spelled cases in the document will be replaced with the correctly spelled case.

This function is practical for more than just misspellings. One example is short form case citations. In law school, students are advised to use full citations while drafting legal and academic documents, and then go back through to change the cases to short form at the very end. Instead of manually changing all of these citations, one option is to use the “Ctrl+Shift+H” function to change all of the citations to short form, and then manually fix the first citation in the document to full form (as opposed to keeping the first citation in full form and manually changing the remaining citations to short form). See below for step-by-step instructions on the “Ctrl+Shift+H” function (on the 2019 version of Microsoft Word).

This simple time can you save you a lot of time and aggravation when correcting that one brief.  The more you use it, collectively, the more time you save!

Happy Typing!