Paul, Hastings, Janofsky, & Walker LLP (PHJW) has law offices in Atlanta, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Stamford, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. Because of the importance of proofreading in a law office, the firm had been encouraging secretaries, word processing staff, and assistants to study English usage (grammar, spelling, and punctuation). The effort was unsuccessful because it lacked a unified structure.

PHJW asked the Business Writing Center to develop a Legal Proofreading Skills training program that staff could complete in four, 2-hour sessions at any office. The resulting Legal Skills Proofreading training program,

1. is Internet-based so staff can take it when they are able
2. contains course and lesson pre- and post-tests scored immediately by the computer
3. includes legal text for examples
4. trains staff in areas specifically relevant to law offices
5. has a "guidelines" list of the skills for each lesson so staff can skip skills with which they are already familiar
6. has an alphabetical index to the rules, making the online training course an online reference tool for later use
7. is administered by an instructor who is readily available to monitor progress, give encouragement, and answer questions
8. includes periodic progress reports accessible to administrators