Document Assembly & Case Management Blog

For the past several years I have been running a virtual office with collaborators in multiple locations.  We have tried a number of collaboration tools, including GoToMeeting and GoToMyPC, Groove, Time Matters World, with mixed success.  Most of the work was project based, where control of the project files could be passed (as a football) from one collaborator to another.  This works as long as you can pass control.  However, there are times when we have needed to have simultaneous control of a project.  For those, we have now standardized on a Wiki.

The Following Article was Originally published in Technolawyer. You may have heard the radio ads for “GoTo…”. A businessman forgets a key file at the office and saves a long trip back to the office (and a lost sale) thanks to this miraculous service called “GoToMyPC”.  However, there is much more to “GoTo” than remote file access. “GoTo…” is a suite of online products and services from Citrix Online that is built around a core “secure desktop sharing” technology.  This review will look at the core technology and then evaluate each of the products, looking specifically at where they would fit into the practice of a busy lawyer.

I gave the following presentation in Sydney, Australia at a conference sponsored by Simon Lewis on the future of Document Assembly.  In this conference I spoke about the opportunities and barriers to entry for document assembly in the legal marketplace.

AS IT APPEARED IN TECHNOLAWYER:

Buying a new pair of shoes is fairly simple — you pick out styles you like, try them on, and go with the pair that fits and looks best. But picking out shoes and picking out a document assembly program are two entirely different animals. In this article, technology consultant and HotDocs expert Seth Rowland takes the guesswork out of your search and arms you with all you need to know about the newest edition of LexisNexis’ popular document assembly software — HotDocs 2006. Seth gives you the lowdown on the pros and cons as well as his wish list for future editions. Whether you’re new to document assembly or an experienced coder, we think you’ll find Seth’s exhaustive review helpful in your evaluation process. This article contains 2,753 words.

Darryl Mountain (Ontago, Inc.) recently submitted a scholarly piece to the International Journal of Law and Information Technology, titled “Disrupting conventional law firm business models using document assembly”.  In this piece, Mountain looks at document assembly software programs: dealbuilder, ghostfill, and hotdocs (to name a few) in the context of how they are, and will be shaping the practice of law—worldwide. To users of document automation, his conclusions will not be surprising.  However, to those on the fence, or to those trying to convinces others to get off the fence, this should be good reading.  CLICK to read article

In a recent article in the New York Times magazine, it was reported that China had ended a policy of official censorship of the press.  Said the Chinese Government official. We believe that our journalists are responsible journalist who understand what is in the best interests of China.  As such, we no longer require that all news copy be reviewed by government censors prior to publication. This was exciting news ... but it required a reading of the fine print to understand what had happened. And the more I read the fine print, the more I realized that something similar had happened in America, both in the public press and other forums of commercial speech.

In a recent TechnoRelease, entitled “TR: Document Assembly: Let’s Be Frank.”, Roy Lasris, President of Innovative Software Products of Virginia, the developer of Pathagoras, wrote the following

Seth Rowland, a well recognized document assembly guru and multiple TechnoLawyer Contributor of the Year outlines in an article published in the September 27, 2005 TechnoFeature 13 discreet steps needed to implement an effective interview driven document assembly system. Seth implores those who are considering document assembly to find the time to implement all steps. Failure to do so will result in less than an optimal system.

I thank him for that quote. He then continued:

As a busy attorney, you may have neither the time nor the inclination to invest that kind of energy without having a guaranteed outcome. As academically accurate as he may be, Seth’s approach is simply contrary to (1) human nature and (2) the nature of most law offices. If you cannot or will not find the time to do it, then you won’t do it.

It is there that I disagree, both with his interpretation of my article, and his conclusion that real a substantial time investment in document assembly will not be rewarded by substantial multiples in profits for any law firm that makes such an investment.

Mrs. Frisby came into our life last week ... She is a “fancy rat”.  Her presence as a pet in the household has forced a re-examination of my prejudices as I have put this creature, who normally skulks around in the dark (avoiding rat poison) under close observation.  I have observed rat behaviour that has lessons for document assembly ...

A few days ago a new visitor arrived in our household, a brown “fancy rat” named Mrs. Frisby.  Mrs. Frisby was found inside a Petco, where she was the “favorite” of the store.  This “cute” rat would climb up and crawl all over you, and then curl up on your shoulder.  With the arrival of “the rat” I have had to rethink my attitude towards rats, try to suppress my prejudices against those “rodent vectors” of disease, and think freshly. My observations of the “rat” have been quite intriguing.

On a recent pitch, I was asked what value-add GhostFill offered over open-source Linux based document assembly tools.  The answer was, “What tools?” There are no open-source document assembly development projects.  Complex rule-driven text manipulation is a mix of “content-management” and “programming”.  Content management deals with Word, RTF, Text, HTML, and PDF formats, traditionally handled on a Windows platform with Windows tools/