Adobe (R) AcrobAt
(R)
8
for LegAL ProfessionALs
By David L. Masters
White Paper

Adobe Acrobat 8 for Legal Professionals ?
White Paper
Adobe (R) Acrobat (R) 8
for Legal Professionals
With the release of Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional, Adobe Systems now delivers features specifc
to the legal profession, including Bates numbering and redaction. Building on a solid foundation,
Acrobat 8 gives legal professionals the power to intuitively create and access PDF fles, collect
information, securely control access to information, and facilitate collaboration. Te widespread
adoption of electronic court flings and the growing practice of exchanging disclosure and
discovery materials in electronic format calls for tools to perform those tasks. Acrobat 8 delivers
a comprehensive solution for working with digital documents, akin to paper-based routines,
with greater efciency and portability. Acrobat 8 provides simple yet secure solutions for
collaboration and exchanging documents with clients and other legal professionals using PDF
(Portable Document Format), which has become the de facto standard for digital documents in
the legal community.
Portable Document Format (PDF)
Refned and perfected over 15 years, Adobe PDF lets legal professionals capture and view
information—from any application, on any computer system—and share it with anyone around
the world. PDF fles can be viewed and printed on any computer system—Macintosh, Microsof(R)
Windows(R), UNIX(R), and many mobile platforms. Adobe PDF fles look just like original docu-
ments, regardless of the application used to create them. Paper documents scanned to PDF look
just like their hard-copy counterparts and can be quickly turned into computer-searchable fles.
Unlike PDF fles, documents scanned to Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) lose their original
appearance when converted to searchable fles. When it comes to long-term fle retention, the
PDF/Archive standard (PDF/A) enables organizations to archive documents electronically in a
way that ensures preservation of content for later retrieval and reuse with a consistent and
predictable result over an extended period of time in the future. Te International Organization
for Standardization (ISO) has approved PDF/A as an archive standard.
Te federal judiciary’s Case Management and Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system has been
implemented in almost all district and bankruptcy courts. CM/ECF allows the courts to have
case fle documents in electronic format and to accept flings via the Internet. CM/ECF systems
are now in use in 89% of the federal courts: 89 district courts, 93 bankruptcy courts, the Court of
International Trade, and the Court of Federal Claims. Most of those courts accept electronic
flings. More than 27 million cases are on CM/ECF systems, and more than 200,000 attorneys
and others have fled documents via the Internet.
Te CM/ECF system stores case and related information as PDF fles. Most legal professionals
fnd the system easy to use—flers prepare a document using their word processor of choice, then
save it to PDF for electronic fling with the court. Attorneys practicing in courts ofering the
electronic fling capability can fle documents directly with the court via the Internet. When
documents are fled electronically, the system automatically generates and sends a verifying
Table of Contents
? Portable Document Format (PDF)
3 The Acrobat 8 product family
3 Legal-specifc features
4 PDF fle creation
6 Combining fles
6 PDF fundamentals
7 Enhancing PDF fles with
Acrobat 8
7 Search and fnd information
8 Gathering information
9 Collaboration
9 Secure information control
10 Information presentation
10 Closing Argument
10 About the Author
10 References