Yellow legal pads?

Subject: Yellow legal pads?
From: The Shambles
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 01:39 PM

We do not have these things here in the UK. They do appear to be significant however. I remember reading that Howard Hughes wrote all his instructions on these pads when he was in exile. Lowden Wainwright III wrote his first topical songs on these whilst working on 'M.A.S.H. What are we missing? We must be told.

Please.

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 01:43 PM

They're just pads of lined paper that are used in the legal profession for for taking notes. Insetad of a standard 8.5 x 11" page size, they are typically 8.5 x 14" -- which has come to be known as "legal size," at least here in the U.S.A. Nothing more to them than that; any pad of lined paper would do just as well (although I suppose it wouldn't be "authentic," so purists might object).

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: MMario
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 01:48 PM

But lined 8.5 x 11 white paper is NOT sufficient,it must be yellow and the lines must be in red. BTW the reason for this (suppossedly - but may be urban myth) is that it won't (or at least for years, wouldn't) xerox/photocopy legibly.....

and please, if you wish to be authentic, use a number 2 pencil.

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: BlueJay
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 01:53 PM

Shambles- In the US, they are simply notebooks with yellow paper that are bound at the top, and come in two common sizes, 8 1/2" by 11", and 8 1/2 by 14. I do not know their origin. My guess is some lawyer was having trouble locating his case notes amid tons of paperwork, and yellow stands out better than white. They used to be all over the place, but I don't see them much anymore. Of course, I'm not an attorney. BlueJay

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: BlueJay
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 01:56 PM

Good one, Mario. That makes sense.

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 01:57 PM

By day I am an environmental consultant who worked for a number of years for a large Boston law firm (advising the bad guys, for the most part). Yellow legal pads are still in use, I can assure you.

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: MMario
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 01:59 PM

they are also very common in educational areas....sorry, I meant to say 8.5 x 14 above....

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: GUEST,DanD
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 02:00 PM

I always thought that lawyers invented them so they'd have something else to bill for.

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: Midchuck
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 02:10 PM

I am a lawyer.

I use white, 8 1/2' x 11' pads for scratch paper.

Maybe I'm just plain contrary - seem reason I stand up in favor of gun ownership on this list, even though the ones I own just sit in the closet and gather dust.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: MMario
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 02:14 PM

but are you a real lawyer? Maybe you're just saying that, because we're on the internet, and you want to twist our minds!

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 02:18 PM

And they DO come in all sorts of colours now and some are even made entirely out of recycled paper. Some are spiral-bound, some just glued, both rip off easily. There are also mini-sized ones, similar to a steno's pad, 5"x8", or so.**BG**

Whatever do the lawyers use in the UK, Shambles?

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 02:28 PM

For some reason, lawyers have traditionally used paper that that is 8.5 by 14 inches long instead of the 8.5 by 11 that is standard in all other kinds of offices. I think the courts used to insist that any briefs filed with them had to be on paper of that size (white of course), besides meeting other arcane and inscrutable rules. I think the rule has been abolished, at least in Minnesota courts, but lawyers are very tradition-bound. One lawyer I am acquainted with insists that his secretary not use any abbreviations in his correspondence. It must be "Saint Paul, Minnesota" not "St Paul, MN".

So legal pads, for note-taking, were ORIGINALLY and TRADITIONALLY strictly yellow paper with horizontal blue lines and a red vertical line to mark the left margin, bound with staples at the top, and perforated so that when you tore off a sheet it would be exactly 8.5 by 14 inches. But today, monster office-supply stores sell "legal pads" in white or any pastel color you fancy, and at least 3 sizes. The only consistent characteristics are the binding, perforation, lines (in whatever color), and the fact that they fit into a hard vinyl-covered folder which is sold separately.

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: The Shambles
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 02:56 PM

I think the paper that lawers use here in the UK is all hand made velum and that it why our legal bills are so high.

Thanks.

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: Bert
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 03:25 PM

When I left England in the Seventies they were just going over to A4 as a paper size. I don't know if they ever completed the transition.
Before that there were two main sizes 'Quarto' (strictly Crown Quarto) which was 8 x 10 and 'Foolscap' (strictly Foolscap Quarto) which was 8 x 13.

There were dozens of paper sizes. We used 'Double Elephant' a lot for drawing. The largest was 'Antiquarian' which was huge (about 6ft x 4ft). We made an Antiquarian paper dart once and launched it down Gower Street from our 3rd floor office window.

Bert.

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: Megan L
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 04:19 PM

Been hunting through archives recently(Proper ones with books and papers) they require you to use yellow- preferably although they would probably accept other colours- to stop you nicking their precious papers.

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: Jim Krause
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 04:58 PM

Hummph, I buy my yellow lined pads of paper in the 8.5 X 11, not 14 inch size, and I use a fountain pen. Sometimes the pen I use has blue ink, or I use the other fountain pen, a cheap $3.49 Shaeffer with black ink. Hard to beat them Shaeffers.

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 06:26 PM

Yellow paper is (or was) a lower quality paper stock, similar to newsprint, and dyed yellow rather than bleached because it was cheaper --advertising copy was written on a an unlined, 8"x 11" version of the same paper--

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: SDShad
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 06:30 PM

Well, when I was a high-school debater (wannabe lawyers all, at the time), we used yellow 8.5 x 11, red lines, with two pens: black to flow Affirmative, and red to flow Negative.

We started with 8.5 x 14 as novices, but graduated to the smaller pads when we "really knew what we were doing."

Uh-huh.

Chris

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: Bert
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 06:34 PM

Yeah Chris, I think you've really hit on the difference between Lawyers and the rest of us.

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 06:43 PM

Well the long pad is nice because it is comfy on the lap, you know, the bottom inches to rest the hand so you can go down on the page farther.

But I think it's the tiny perforations that let these tear off that does it for me-- the sound of tearing it, the nice little edge it makes, the neatness of the edges-- and the way they are bound at the top makes them into a good booklet to leave all the "good" pages in there-- they last forever like a notelbook except no awkward rings in the middle when you have writing to do, and they can stand up nicely to be played from or otherwise studied.

Just a good tool all around.

~S~

Shouldn't someone send Shamb a boxful and a bunch of sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils? Hell, I will, Shamb, if you'll put your address in my Page!

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: Banjer
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 07:12 PM

I've often wondered if there are Legal Pads, doesn't it follow that there would also be Illegal Pads?

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: Sorcha
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 07:14 PM

Made of hemp fiber?

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 06:20 PM

We don't have ordinary paper for phone messages in the Inland Revenue - no, we have form 100's which are green. The only yellow we use is the 46D-1 which is a small request form and the CT48-G which is a large request form.... I am not at liberty to tell you what they request...

LTS

Subject: RE: Yellow legal pads?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 06:55 PM

Oh, come on, Liz, obviously the 46D-1 is for small requests and the CT48-G is for large requests. Why be so bloody secretive about it?

I use yellow legal pads all the time, and I'm only a doctor. I think, though, that katlaughing was on the right track when she said "both rip off easily."

It is fascinating, isn't it, how much of our cultural environment we take for granted, and how much it surprises us when others find some items strange or unknown. (Such as the joke in the paragraph above, for example.) Even differences from Philadelphia to New York to Boston are often amusing. This is one reason I love the Mudcat, BS and all.

Aloha,
Mark