Document Assembly & Case Management Blog

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/

Office13, aka Office 2006, now in final beta, introduces a new format WordML, a Microsoft variant of XML that includes XML objects and proprietary Word formatting extensions.  XML has the potential to revolutionize document assembly, allowing for the creation of dynamic editable templates.  D3 and Perfectus make extensive use of XML encoding in Office 2003.  They present a case study in diametrically opposite approaches to the design of document automation software.

We have been busy restructuring all our website in the Basha Systems family: Bashasys.net, our client new client portal, Bashasys.com, our main consulting site, Bashasys.org our Fogbugz project tracking site, store.bashasys.com, our store.  There are two other sites almost ready to go live to support our Nebraska Probate System V and a new system for Building Inspectors. With these items out of the way, I am ready to return to commenting on developments in Document Assembly.  In particular, HotDocs 2006 is about to go into Full Beta. I have gathered posted by chief architect of HotDocs Marshall Morrise to the public HotDocs list.  When the product comes out of beta and is released, come back for a discussion of these innovative new features.

At Basha Systems we have recently launched a new and improved client portal.  The system is built in SubDreamer and phpBB2.  We provide a private space for client announcement and downloads. On the client home page we give an overview of recent postings in a private threaded discussion forum.

Basha Systems continues it exploration of finding the most efficient technology to provide information on document assembly and its potential as a “disruptive technology” that created “profits” for the practice of law. Part of this exploration has been the porting of the this blog to Expression Engine. Other examples can be seen on the main Bashasys.com web site with the introduction of Video Tours of our system. See Document Assembly Video Tours. Another element is the use of integrated web publishing and threaded discussion technology which will soon be available as a private Client Portal on Bashasys.Net

SATISFACTION ... 40 YEARS LATER

Superbowl XL was a tour de force, with the largest audience of any show all year.  It is the one football game I watch each year ... “I watch for the commercials” and the “half-time” show.  This year, Mick Jagger of ther Rolling Stones performed the half-time show ... without a “wardrobe malfunction”.  At the age of 62, Mick Jagger opened with the remark, that it took 40 years from when he burst onto the Rock ‘n Roll scene to make it to the mainstream of the Superbowl XL ("40").  Dancing around a giant tongue (stuck out at full length, as in a “Brooklyn cheer") he launched into a rousing rendition of “I can’t get no Satisfication ...” and I tried, and I tried, and I tried.

A DECADE LATER

It has now been over a decade since I left my comfortable “New York” litigation practice to enter the area of document assembly consulting.  In the ten years, document assembly has gone from “fringe and novel” to “mainstream.  For many attorneys it is a central part of their process, whether it be for generating high-volume pleadings, prepare probate applications, or drafting wills and complex tax-sheltering trusts.  This article is a reminsce on the past decade in document assembly.