How can you make the most of your summer associate position? Get everyone in the firm to worship you as a god among humans. How? That's the easy part: Device Mastery.

More than any profession I've encountered, lawyers have the biggest gap between the level of technology they insist on surrounding themselves with and their personal competence at operating said technology.

Why is this? Because they're, you know, too busy and important to learn how to use it. Of course, an item of technology that you can't use effectively will on balance waste more time than it saves.

The one I don't get is paragraph auto-numbering in Word and Wordperfect. I have not met anyone who knows how to use it. Yet it is so useful, and doing paragraph numbering by hand is beyond idiotic. So while there are many ways you can exhibit Device Mastery at your job, to keep it simple I suggest:

1. Learn to use the paragraph auto-numbering feature.

2. When you see a complaint drifting around with incorrect numbering, say "you know, if you email me that document, I can make your paragraphs auto-number themselves."

3. Perform the change, which will take about 4 minutes. But then wait another 71 minutes before you send it back, with a note that says "It was tricky but I got it done!"

4. This is the most important: make sure no one observes you during the auto-numbering process. If they ask you to show them how to do it themselves, you respond: "well, it's just so technical and complex, I don't mind showing you but we should set aside an afternoon to do it." That will be the last you hear of it.

12 Feb 06