In this time of economic downturn, a number of firms are looking at making Staff cuts. And one of the areas they are looking hard at is word-processing. There has been an aggressive pitch by “vendors” offering to outsource the word-processing department. With the advent of high-speed color scanners and high-speed internet, it is possible to send your document (or your dictation) around the world, and have it delivered back to you 24×7. With worldwide networks and hosted document repositories, it is possible to have a service provide with offices in every major time zone. And so, what is missing in the bid by these vendors for your work. What are some of the choices.
Year: 2009
Sharepoint and Infopath vs. Time Matters and HotDocs – When FREE is NOT FREE
FREE is not FREE. We in the legal practice management community live in a “bubble”. Because of our “unique needs” and “limited budgets” lawyers and professional service organizations, have been able to attract a unique set of software tools for drafting our documents and managing our business. Among these tools are document assembly software packages like HotDocs, GhostFIll, DealBuilder and Exari. And among the practice management tools are ones like Time Matters, Amicus Attorney and PracticeMaster. These tools are well developed, with development histories of over a decade or two decades of use. And these tools are “Rapid Development” platforms that enable developers and consultants to build powerful and highly customized solutions for their clients.
It is true there are OTHER tools that can be used for managing contact information and for automating forms. These other tools are “free” since many of them are included with the licenses to products many already use. InfoPath is included with the enterprise version of Microsoft Office; SharePoint Services is included with many versions of Windows Server. And because these tools are “free” and because larger organizations have dedicated programming staff to build solutions with these tools, there is a tendency outside of LEGAL, to use these tools instead. THIS is a mistake.
But Can’t We DO the SAME thing
I have spent time exploring SharePoint and InfoPath. From my perspective, as a consultant, building solutions based on “free software” is a great sell. I could build solutions with Merge Templates; or go beyond and set up InfoPath data entry forms to fee the merge templates. I could offer these forms over a “free” SharePoint server. I could take the document markup used by a document assembly product like HotDocs, and replace it with Bookmarks and XML objects with rules assigned to those objects. This would be great for my business, until I asked the client to pay for the development bill.
The reason lawyers and professional service organizations choose a HotDocs for document assembly or a Time Matters for practice management is because the development costs for equivalent level of customization is a fraction of what they would be for building a custom system on SharePoint Service, InfoPath with Microsoft SQL Server. These solutions are powerful and integrated out of the box. I was asked by a prospective client how much time it would take to covert a set of 100 lending documents into a series of automated HotDocs templates. When I replied a conservative 2-3 months, his response was, “That would replace our division of programs in _______ .” These tools are “staff multipliers” both in the efficiency such systems can achieve, and in the efficiency of these tools for software development.
A Well-Kept Secret
Big “IT” is keeping these tools secret. It is always better to not have to requisition new software for solutions that “could have been built in-house”. The risk of bringing in such software lies both in the cost and the risk to existing staff who could have been tasked to build the solution in-house. Besides, these systems they say, are just a bunch of data tables and merge fields; what could be so hard.
They say the “devil is in the details”. In practice management and document assembly, that is true. The goal in document assembly is “RTP” or ready to print. And yet, there are thousands of potential nuances in any given document. The goal in practice management is in the multiple views of the data and the ability to search effectively across multiple tables to mine the data,and the ability to vary the data requirements across different practice groups and different purposes.
The real risk however for big IT is not document assembly software and practice management software (much of which was developed in North America), but rather outsourcing of entire divisions to India, China and Pakistan. Big “IT” looks at “body count” and lines of code, rather than productivity, suitability of solutions to the requirements, or time from conception to delivery.
When the Paralegal Down the Hall Is In India
This morning I received an email from mindspring.net offering outsourced legal services in India: research, transactions, document coding, drafting services, all at prices that would be a fraction of the cost of having a paralegal on staff. No benefits. No taxes. No overhead. And I only need to pay them when I actually use them. The frequency of these offers, and the fact that many law firms are seriously considering them, represent a tectonic shift in the practice of law. It is one, of several possible outgrowths of the commoditization of the practice of law. There are other options.
A Word on Styles – The Last 30 Minutes in Document Production
Deep in the midst of a CAPSAuthor Conversion and a HotDocs template rebuild, I had a chance to reengage with Word Styles. I was explaining to my client that part of the rebuild involved the creation of a custom styles template for their entire suite of documents. In one instance, when the client pointed to a visual discrepancy to some paragraph, I opened the template and assigned the paragraph to a different paragraph style. In another instance, I opened the stylesheet, changed a style definition,and then pushed out the new definition to 20 templates. What would have been an hour or so of work to edit the templates, or 15 minutes cleanup on every assembly, was eliminated in under a minute.
Read moreA Word on Styles – The Last 30 Minutes in Document Production
Easy Case Management & Technolawyer
A recent series of posts on Technolawyer, titled “Legal Software and Consultants” troubled me. In this series, Mark Deal, Ay Uaxe, and Jason Havens spared on the role of legal consultants in implementing case management solutions. There was a touch of resentment on both sides. On one side, the lawyers (of whom I count myself), look to their extensive education, their extensive domain knowledge and work experience as qualifiers in the world of software design and process. It should be “easy”; it should be “cheap”; and anyone can do this stuff; it’s not rocket science. Why don’t those vendors understand? Why don’t they anticipate and design for my needs. On the other side are the legal technology consultants who have spent years studying the software tools, designing solutions with the software, and implementing and training. Many serve in defacto advisory capacity to software vendors, fielding feature requests and reporting on bugs.
Template vs. System Design
Over the years of working with HotDocs we have encountered many issues with the basic design of HotDocs, client requests and what not, that have required creative solutions. And in so doing, we have changed our approach from one that centered around “documents” to one that centers around data and workflow. In so doing, we have substantially changed the way that we code in HotDocs, using methods and approaches that arise from other coding languages and programming principals. We have found HotDocs to be flexible and powerful enough to support, for example, the use of common elements across multiple templates, use of templates as reusable objects, using local and global variables, internal databases, and dynamic indexing and cross-references. Such features are not required for basic template design. However, there use leads to more user-friendly interviews, more dynamic data entry, and the ability to design templates and interviews that reflect and respond to the data input.
Spring is in the Air
A new frugality is sweeping the country. It is posed as a movement towards thrift, a response to the downturn in the economy. But I want to posit that it is a movement towards self-reliance and an assertion of control over one’s fate. If one can no longer rely on the big law firm or the big corporation for sustenance; if one can no longer rely on appreciating home values; if one can no longer on growing 401(k) plans; then one must rely on oneself. And so as I prepare the beds for my vegetable and flower gardens, I think about the implications of this movement.
Digging up the Sod
This year we have expanded our small garden plot. In previous years, we had a 10 foot by 12 foot vegetable garden (cucumbers, peas, tomatoes, string beans and zucchini) and an 8ft by 6ft herb garden (basil, oregano, tarragon, mint, cilantro, parsely and sage). This year, we ripped up a sunny patch by the garage (3ft x 12ft) and have planted fingerling potatoes and yukon gold. We took another patch of dormant soil by the herb garden and planted 24 perennial everblooming strawberries plants. We took a fence border that had previously been the home of weeds (quite successful) and turned it into a bed for wildflowers. We even took some extra potato eyes and planted them in the front yard between the azaleas.
All plants use humous, peat, and cow manure, enhanced with bone meal… all natural ingredients. We would qualify as an organic farm. To fight off the most common garden pest in our neck of the woods, deer, we have purchased wire fences and posts to put up today around the new garden beds. And so, as the soil thaws, the days get longer, and the air gets warmer, we consider the effort we take and enquire, as rational capitalists, what are the implications for the U.S. and world economy of our actions.
Economics of the Home Garden Plot
First we enquire from the perspective of the family budget: are we saving money? In previous years we have calculated our bounteous crop against the cost of sowing. If we include only the sunk costs, out of pocket expenses, and none of the labor, we have either had a net loss or broken even. In other words, the decision, from a purely economic perspective to plant a garden, has always been a poor decision.
Second: we inquire from the perspective of the experience, the enjoyment: Consider the taste of fresh vine-picked tomatoes (sweet, tart and tender), the aroma of freshly plucked oregano and basil, and the savory crunch of oven-roasted pumpkin seeds. These are worth savoring. In the words of the Mastercard commercial, seeing your child pluck a tomatoe off the vine and bite into it (not having to sanitise and ripen it on a shelf). That is priceless.
Third, we look at the labor: There is the family effort in seed-starting, planting, tending, and ultimately harvesting the crop. Here the family works closely together, with a shared responsibility and reward. We can teach the value of work, since there are clear tangible results from the labor. By contrast with real work, where the result is an exchangable and fungible currency, in gardening the work results in tangible outputs that can be held, admired and consumed.
Lessons from the House Garden
So what does gardening teach us; and are there lessons for business? Gardening teaches us self-reliance. Last summer, I remember an article about people in California hiring garden specialist to plant and maintain private gardens in their backyard. These Californians were overseers of organic gardens where they could wander in and harvest, but did not share in the labors of the planting or tending. I can see the value of assistance, but such “hired gardeners” misses the point of the family plot. My son wants to harvest the cucumbers and sell pickles on the street in front of our house. If the success of the neighborhood lemonade stand or homemade cookie booth is any measure, this will be a losing proposition. Rather, we will share our harvest with friends and family over a few bottles of chardonnay.
Going beyond that garden, I am seeing my friends, colleagues and clients taking stock of their own lives; seeing what they can do for themselves, searching for stability and dependability in some form of self reliance. Some have been willingly, or unwillingly become entrepreneurs. Some, business owners, have shelved their growth plans and plans for world domination and looked to cut costs and moderate growth. Others have tried to do it all, as I have done in planting my garden, I have tried to grow plants from seed ($1.25 a packet) rather than buy a pre-grown plant ($3.50/plant).
In advising these friends and clients, I ask them not to consider the home garden in their business equations. Rather, they need to recognize that this is a time of examination and reinvestment. We cannot assume that all efforts will turn to gold. Nor can we sit back and try to do everything ourselves. There are specialists who can effectively aide us in our efforts and we should draw on their expertise. Yes, we should look at how efficiently we operate our business.
There is one lesson from the home garden. Years ago, during the days of communist rule in U.S.S.R. and the days of the collectivist farm, I was told a statistic, that the big farms of the Soviet Union, which occupied 95% of the arable land in production, produced 20% of the consumable food, and the 5% uncollectivised home farms produced 80% of the consumable food. If you look at the production per square foot of tended land in the typical home garden, the output will be 4-10 times the output of the same land in a commercial farm (go read Michael Pollan). And the lesson in the home farm is how to take that limit space, and with proper inputs and tending, make a sustainable business.
Cloud Based Practice Management
In the next few weeks, my reviews of CLIO and RocketMatter will appear in Technolawyer, with copies on this site. I don’t want to give away the results, but I want to comment more generally on the development goals of cloud-based offerings versus client-server offerings. To some degree, I have dealt with that tension in my development and advisory role in the creation of Wealth Transfer Planning and its unique front-end for HotDocs. It is this balancing act between simplicity and sophistication, between stability and customizability, that marks really good software. CLIO and RocketMatter are following in the footsteps of the two giants of software development.
CLIO and RocketMatter are following the outsized success of SalesForce.com and that of Bob Butler’s efforts in building Time Matters. SalesForce.com is a ubiquitous platform that promises data anywhere, on any platform, from any location. Resources are “rented” at a hefty monthly fee. The user has no upfront costs, no hardware costs, and pays only based on usage. The user gets service guarantees. But what has made SalesForce.com so successful is the API (application programming interface) which lets it read data from and write data to just about any resource, its customizable front-end, and the ability to create and purchase add-ons that interact with the data. All this together is responsible for SalesForce.com’s outsized lead in the Cloud market. It can be whatever you need it to be; and it is likely, if you want it, that someone else has already customized SaleForce to meet the needs of their industry, and can give or license you that customization module.
Time Matters, in the Client-Server environment is much like Salesforce.com. It is a powerful, structured database that allows near infinite customization. Out-of-the-box Time Matters works as a full-blown practice management system. It can be easily customized. There is a network of consultants and third party vendors who have harnessed the power of the data in Time Matter’s SQL databases, and those who, like yours truly, have built and marketed add-ons for Time Matters.
So how can CLIO and RocketMatter follow in the footsteps of the two giants? At the moment, they are ensuring the stability of their core offering. Both have delivered solid, functional practice management systems. Both have unique visions on what usability is, and how it should work. Their interfaces are innovative; client/server vendors should take notice of what they have done in terms of usability. And yet, both CLIO and RocketMatter have a singular vision; a single view of what the interface should be, what features should be available. They try to fit all lawyers and all law practices into one mode of operation, one mode of billing, one mode of practice.
In their efforts to get out a 1.0 release, the software at present does not represent the full diversity of practices of lawyers in the market place. This is not to say that these programs will not or cannot represent that diversity. Unless your core product works, is stable and supportable and dependable, it doesn’t matter how customizable and flexible the product will be. The learning curve on both products is measured in hours, and not days or weeks, like it is for other practice management solutions. CLIO’s tagline is “Practice Management Simplified”. RocketMatter, in some ways, seems to think for you, seamlessly building interrelations between contacts and matters. Both make it easy for lawyers to bill and capture their time.
And yet, in this drive to simplify, make practice management easier, more available, these vendors have missed the richness and diversity of the practice of law; they have missed the benefits of interconnectedness between data and documents, between applications. Much of what I am asking for in these offerings can be added on and built into these offerings, and most likely will. And since the cost of distributing updates of Web 2.0 technology are zero, may come to pass. We need more recognition of that diversity, the ability to customize by practice area, to recognize user-specific preferences in the interface, to recognize new and unique record types, and the ability to package and deliver such features.
I will save for another time why The Cloud is so important, particularly for lawyers.
Social Networking – BestThinking – Twitter – LinkedIn
Over the past week, I have dabbled my toes in the world of social networking. I have not yet activated my facebook profile (bashasys) or sought my “friends”, but I have looked as some of the more narrow market social networking tools. The problems is that many of the tools are TOO open. That means lotsa people to follow, lotsa posts to sift through, and oodles of time to waste. For that reason, my recent discovery of “groups” in a number of these sites heralds a change in my opinion of them.
Groups, for those who don’t know, are more like amorphous electronic social clubs. They each have a dynamic. Have too few people in a group, and nothing happens; it sits dormant, waiting for someone to provide a spark, and eventually dies a slow death of obscurity. Have too many people and the group become a raucous nightclub with EVERYONE SHOUTING, and no-one able to be heard. In some ways, like a busy pick-up bar (from long ago memory), there are those select and talented individuals who can actually meet someone in such an environment, with the unique capacity to say the right thing and hear the right thing in a way to make a connection. For the majority of us, myself included, the noise and business is a turnoff; there is no way to get to know someone, to connect.
And so, finding myself in the role of group moderator and host, I have faced a choice. Do I open up the group to anyone interested who clicks a join button, thereby boosting my number of “groupies” and friends. Or do I handpick my friends and invite them into the club, ensuring that the members have something in common, that the group doesn’t get too big. I have chosen a middle ground. I have tried to define the space, the credentials required for membership in the group. I have albeit invited my friends; but I have also asked them to invite their friends, and them to invite their friends. For my HotDocs Wizards Link, my criteria is that any participant actually program in HotDocs, not just be interested in following or marketing to group members. For The Virtual Lawyer, I have asked that members be either lawyers or technologists working with lawyers who use and promote the Virtual Practice of Law.
Only time will tell whether this is a waste of time, my time and my members time. For the moment, it is fun; there are some useful ideas; and I have learned what others with similar interests are doing. It has allowed me an excuse and a forum to hook up with those whom I see only occasionally and others who may know of me but whom I do not know. It has been commented that this blog is closed to comments (Mark Deal, we know who you are and where you live). The main reason has been the commenting capabilities of blogs are really inadequate to the development of useful discussions. This blog, however, is NOW being fed as a newsfeed on the HotDocs Wizards Link. If you do want to post comments, be sure to join the HotDocs Wizards group and post your comment there.
The Virtual Lawyer – LinkedIn Group
A few days ago I decided to check out the new enhanced Group Management tools at LinkedIn. A year ago, I put up my CV on LinkedIn. Over time, I have dutifully built my network, making occasional invites, and accepting other invites. I set up a group for HotDocs Wizards —LinkedIn Group: HotDocs Wizards about a month or two ago. Out of the blue, we actually got two job postings. Just a few days ago, I started up The Virtual Lawyer—LinkedIn Group: The Virtual Lawyer and this time I was able to see the potential of LinkedIn.
In starting the group, I extended invitations to all MyConnections. I then asked the members of the group to invite their connections. In a short time we had over 40 members. Then, to keep it interested, I tried posting some discussion topics. Since my network tends to be of fairly vocal individuals with a range of legal and technical experience, we quickly got a lively discussion. In time, I hope that discussion will lead to some useful information for the participants, as well as further the reach of each of the group members. Since The Virtual Lawyer group is committed to breaking down walls between individuals, my hope is such group will foster new connections and new resources for all the participants.
I may, on occasion cross-post some of the discussion here on this blog. More likely, I invite you to join linkedIn and to join ONE or BOTH of the Groups.