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During most of my internships, one solid piece of advice I received was to keep myself updated. This meant checking various websites of the regulator daily. It can be CBDT, RBI, MCA, CIC and the list goes on.
Most of the time there were no changes and after a couple of days, I would forget to check these websites, until my boss would ask me about the latest circular issued by XYZ, and so the cycle continued. I wish there was a simpler way to keep track of all of them. Something that notifies me only if there is a change on the website or only when a specific keyword is mentioned on the website.
I researched and found Hexowatch.com to be the best tool for the same. The only problem is that the free plan is rather limited if you plan to monitor more than 2 websites. If you are using Chrome, you can use Page Monitor (https://cutt.ly/Bcgscdh) or PageProbe (https://cutt.ly/mcgsdAv) both are free chrome extensions, and the only constraint is that they can only notify you when your browser is running and connected to the internet. Let me know if you found this useful.
Just add shortform versions of words which you would like to be replaced with the actual words. Like how Kian said, defining "agt" or "agr" to be replaced with "agreement", "def" to be replaced with "Defendant" and so on....
Though bear in mind, that unlike the document definitions that we generally use, once a rule is set it will be applicable throughout MS Word on that account and will not be limited to just that particular document that you were working on.
1. Get comfortable at (or lose your fear of) Excel / Google Sheets / LibreOffice Calc, etc. It will pay dividends down the road and you can achieve some surprising things with it, besides just making graphs. There are lots of tutorials online, but there will be times that you can save hours using simple numerical operations instead of using a pocket calculator (enter something into a cell like "=A1+A2+A3" or "=SUM(A1:A3)") or so-called string concatenation (enter into a cell: "=A1 & ' will be combined with ' & A2" and it will combine the text of those two cells, and you can even automate things with simple logic to give you different output).
2. Get comfortable with Google or other search engines, especially using advanced commands like "site:legallyindia.com insertsearchqueryxyz" or "filetype:pdf". A very useful blog was written on this on LI before:
https://www.legallyindia.com/views/entry/researching-without-legal-database-the-alternate-google
3. A little more advanced perhaps (and probably will not be allowed on Citrix or other locked down work systems) there is a software for Windows called AutoHotkey, which at the simple end can save you a lot of typing. You can for instance define it to type "agreement" whenever you type "agt" or other similar contractions that you use frequently (there are also some specialist "text expansion" tools that might be even easier). Once you get more into Autohotkey, you can program simple macros that will repeat certain repetitive actions over and over again (there are other macro recording programmes also that can do this).
4. When working with PDFs and fed up with how slow Adobe PDF reader is, do consider installing SumatraPDF as an alternative. It starts up super fast, can view most PDF files and generally doesn't have all the Adobe bloat (but beware, it does not deal so well with fancy interactive PDFs that contain embedded other documents, forms, etc, but for those you can use Adobe).
5. This software (or other launchers like it) are very useful and can save a lot of time in the long run, letting you do quick Google searches from any other programme with a hotkey for instance: http://www.launchy.net/ If you customise it a bit (which isn't too hard), you can even set it up so you can launch searches or commands on many different sites you often use or search with just a button press or two, plus do other things like instantly do calculations, work with your clipboard, etc.
6. Not so much software, but a lot of people swear by buying a second monitor for research or any work and productivity. That way you can have a word document open on one screen, while you have a PDF and some research database on the second screen, so you can just glance between your notes and research screen easily. If you can't afford / don't have space / don't want a second screen, another small tip along this line (which some people might not know) is to tile your windows. On Windows it can be done by dragging your word document window by the title bar all the way to the left of the screen, at which point it will resize to take up the left half the screen. Then select a second window (like a browser window or PDF or research to the right of the screen). If your computer screen is big enough / your eyesight is good enough, you can then view / work on two documents at once.
7. If you are a newbie, try learn to use keyboard hotkeys in all your software. In windows that includes using the windows key to open the start menu, and you can type the name of programmes and open them up (if Cortana doesn't get in the way), rather than hunting for their icons, or even pressing Win+E to open Explorer, etc. In Word, you will no doubt know Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I etc, but you might not know that nearly all commands have keyboard hotkeys (which are listed in the menus) and can also be customised from the settings. So if you use Align-Right or Justify often, learn the Ctrl+R or Ctrl+J hotkeys, for example by using them often (or writing them on a cheat sheet as you learn new ones). Over years, it'll save you years of your life spent clicking things :)
Not sure if any of these are useful or too basic / not relevant? If they are or anyone would like any more information or has similar tips, please pipe up below.
Also, what are the computer skills that as a lawyer you have to master? Because honestly, lawyers spend a lot of time working on computers, editing documents, compiling pdfs etc. So any tips and tricks that you learnt and can help a newbie out, do tell!