Minnesota Lawyer
At Stinson LLP, Fred A. Levy Haskell is the go-to guy, a work product support specialist who, in addition to his day-to-day tasks, consistently produces time-saving templates using his tools of the trade, Microsoft Office and associated programs. For example, he has written a set of macro programs that help Word users to do repetitive tasks more quickly.
Levy Haskell has been doing this for a long time, having worked with Microsoft Word and other word processing software for more than 30 years. The 71-year-old feels fortunate Stinson was willing to hire him at the tender age of 64, at a time in life when most people have retired or plan to do so.
At Stinson, one program Levy Haskell designed searches a document to ensure the quotation marks are consistent. Another cleans Word documents extracted from PDFs, readying them for easy application of styles and formats. Finally, Levy Haskell created a template and set of tools to help attorneys respond to requests for proposals.
His constant goal is to make documents look good and maintain Stinson’s visual branding. “One of the things that I’ve learned over the years is instead of immediately diving into a job, I just take a step back and say, ‘OK, what are they asking for?’” he said. “What’s going to fit the need? I try to approach it that way, rather than just getting halfway through and thinking, ‘I should have done it this other way.’”
A bit of a Renaissance man, Levy Haskell occasionally shoots professionally as a photographer, plays guitar, listens to half a dozen musical genres, and reads nonfiction widely. He likes his work. “I could have retired, but I’m having too much fun, I really am,” he said.
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