When a court wants a word count of a legal document, how in the world does one get such a thing from a computer or a computer program?

The exact proceedure will vary depending upon the program used to write the document. In MS Word, once the document is written you can click the File menu and then the "Properties" command.

Click the "Statistics" tab and read the word count.

In MS Works: (from Works Help menu)
"Count words in a document
1 Open the document in which you want to count the words.

2 On the Tools menu, click Word Count.
Works displays the total number of words in the open document.

Note The words in headers, footers, footnotes, and endnotes are not counted with the words in the main body of the document."

See this picture

Other word processors will do the same thing. Click the programs "help" menu and look for "word count" or "document properties".

I hope this will help.

Dwight

Congratulations on being "Enthusiast of the Year"! I can see why.

I will be preparing the brief (as a layperson, of course) with my old computer--the one with the Windows '95 and the MS Works that is some low number as approximately a 4. I suppose that I will find the word "Statistics" but how much more remains to be seen . . . or not seen. Secretly, I hope that I cannot furnish the word count, because I could use such an occurrence as an example of something unavailable for evidence, but I expect to get a word count. MS Works 4 is not that old!