Paper Software (for the Mac) from Turner (Contracts Made Easy) (www.paper-software.com) is a solution in search of a problem. On encountering the product at LegalTech New York 2014, I asked myself how this tool would improve either legal document drafting or document analysis. I was told there was a new “document assembly” tool that work on a Mac. What I found was fascinating, but really a niche product.
Paper Software will “read” your agreement and give you powerful navigation tools to understand the relation between the provisions and the defined terms. It is slick in its operation. It also serves as an alternative editor for drafting agreements that “work”. By work, it means that all Capitalized Terms are actually defined somewhere in the document, and conversely that all Defined Terms are in fact used somewhere in the document (other than the definitions section).
If all lawyers were good and clear writers, then a tool like this wouldn’t be much use. The reality, however, is that many agreements are CRIBBED from prior agreements. And in this Cut/Paste process key terms can be left undefined, or misdefined. It is here where the issue arises. Once you have pieced together your new agreement, you run it through the Paper Software analysis engine and see if it comes up to snuff.