Basha Systems Client Portal Launched

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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.

Check out the portal at Bashasys.net.  Login as “clienttest” with the password “clienttest” and give it a test drive.  We set up the portal for all client projects that exceed $15,000.

The New Paradigm in Client Communications

The typical client communication has degenerated into a tsunami of e-mails.  When there are only two players on a project, email communications are managable.  If the users have implemented filters on their email, or use a case management product like Time Matters then you can build a thread of e-mails on a topic.  However, once multiple developers and a team of clients join the project, e-mail threads get quickly out of control.  People get copied on emails that should not be.  Emails grow in length as they get replied to and forwarded.

By contrast, a Discussion Forum has Topics.  An inital post can have a range of “replies”.  The team can “vote” on topics … respond to a poll.  The whole forum is searchable with an intelligent search engine.  Topics can be “closed” and moved to a closed issues forum.  When combined with a publishing engine like SubDreamer, the topics can lead to “announcements” which are made to a selected group based on login.  If there is a file that needs to be downloaded, it can be posted to the server and be accessible without fancy FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software via a download manager.

Document Assembly and Information Portals

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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.Ne

Related Link: A sample link to our Client Support Portal

What is the promise of Web portals and why should anyone who cares about document assembly care?

Web portals no longer cost thousands of dollars.  There are open source web-portals, and there are low priced software systems which contain dozens of customizable skins.  While these “portals” are not designed for an “attorney” to set up WYSWIG … They do present a powerful, low cost alternative that is within the reach of most law firms.  And … the benefit is that since portals are driven by databases … and not HTML coded pages, it is incredibly each to add new articles, or manage threaded discussions without ANY knowledge of HTML, PHP, MySQL and the plethora of intimidating web acronyms.

The reason you should care is simple.  Many clients start out with a “google search” before they go to an attorney.  It is not that they use the Google search to choose the attorney, but they use it to inform themselves of the law in a particular area so that they can more effectively use the attorney’s “expensive” time.  That is because attorneys, for better are worse, are views as “expensive” … and the less time you spend with an attorney, the better.  “Some of my best friends are attorneys … and I still maintain my own bar rap.”

How to WebPortal Increase Visibility

Web portals, particular ones like ExpressionEngine and SubDreamer are entirely database driven.  The entire website consists of a series of cascading templates and style sheets which pull information from a database of posted articles.  This means, you have an instant, current, easily modifiable, completely searchable and indexed set of articles, organized by categories and subcategories, that can demonstrate the expertise of your firm.  Most webportals, include a guestbook that can be used to “track leads” on new potential business.  And, for clients, there is support for “member groups” so that you can publish articles specific to a client, based on the client’s login.

Most up to the Bigleague with a low budget

This is not to denigrate Sharepoint (from Microsoft) or some of the other bigger web portals.  There is a place for them.  But the starting price for those systems is easilly in the tens of thousands of dollars before you see a clear benefit.  By contrast, you can get a hosted web site ($50/month), a license to SubDreamer ($125) and engage a webdeveloper who can “skin” these sites for two days ($3,000) and you have a complete publishing platform and client support system.  You can replace the “pesky emails” that go awry with a secure, private threaded discussion forum that only you and your client can see.  And this will be a forum that you can see from an internet connected terminal, subject to proper login.

And the Reason I care

We are not in the web development system at Basha Systems, but we have invested hundreds of hours in learning these tools and applying document assembly object oriented programming principals to their development.  We use these tools to communicate effectively with our clients.  Our hope is that with these tools, our clients will be able to generate more business, and more revenue which can be reinvested into building profitable document assembly systems with HotDocs, GhostFill and Dealbuilder.

Cheers,

Seth

Lessons from SuperBowl XL – I Can’t Get No Satisfaction

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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.

THE JURASIC PERIOD

When I first started writing on document assembly, in the early days of the commercial internet, I was flamed as a traitor.  I took the position, which I hold now, that the billable hour is a dinosaur.  I argued that unless law firms changed their business model, they would soon find themselves priced out of the legal market by more nimble competitors.  I took the position that law firms who innovated and invested in their intellectual property, would rise to the top in terms of profitability per partner.

TRENDS TOWARD COMMODITIZATION

The response I received, to say the least, was caustic.  How could you “commoditize the law”.  Do people get legal services from “Walmart?” or “Lawyer’s ‘r Us.” The quality of legal services in this country will plummet.  Lawyers are unable to determine the “true cost” of services, and should be rewarded for the hours they labour.  Once you “fix prices”, lawyers will stop innovating and lower the quality of the services they provide.  We are serving as “advisors” to our clients – how can we put a price on that advice.  When I suggested that will value-billing and project-based billing, the effective hourly rate for service could reach into thousands of dollars per hour, I was told that lawyers who charged such fees should be brought before bar association ethics committees and disbarred.

ACTING AS AN ACCOMPLICE

Lucky for me, I was no longer practicing law, but rather “aiding and abbetting” my clients in the commission of these ethics crimes.  I was making it possible for my clients to “fix” the fee for a client for the delivery of a defined service.  The client would get a “cap” on the fee and a fixed expectation of the service to be rendered.  By defining the service with particularity, the law firm then had the incentive to invest in building intellectual property and systems to deliver that service with a minimum of time.  I spent much of my time, urging my clients to consider the R.O.I. on document assembly.  Most of the time, these projects were implemented only for “loss leaders” – services which were not profitable under the hourly model – and thus the investment would “save” the firm from having to write off hours.

TRY TRY TRY

For ten years , I got no satisfaction.  And I tried, and I tried, and I tried.  Yes, I found a number of enterprising attorneys who faced with the choice of hiring additional staff to handle a burgeoning workload, or investing in automation technology and consulting, chose the CHEAPER alternative – automation.  I would spend 30% of my time marketing and doing demos.  Ten years laters, I spend 5% of my time marketing.  These websites bring in several leads every weak … people who had already made a decision to automate.  The only question is whether the cost of our services would fit into their Return on Investment.  Many of our clients are pioneers, pushing the limits of automation.  They have played with HotDocs and Ghostfill, worked with merge fields and done simple automation.

FROM DOCUMENTS TO APPLICATIONS

And now they were ready to go to the next level, and build a custom application to handle a complete practice area.  Those are the inquiries we are now receiving.  Document assembly is no longer just for documents.  Mosts of our systems begin with a Master Information List to gather data and then a switchboard.  We invite you to look videos of our current systems.  Video Tours

DOCUMENT ASSEMBLY SOFTWARE

Over the years, I have worked with a number of Document Assembly Products. For more information on these products, click on links below:

  • HotDocs
  • GhostFill
  • DealBuilder
  • Smartwords
  • MasterDraft
  • PowerTXT
  • ThinkDocs
  • WinDraft
  • Perfectus
  • qShift
  • Microsoft Word
  • Corel WordPerfect

LegalTech 2006 – Document Assembly

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Another year has come and gone … LegalTech New York … The largest annual technology show.  Despite the emphasis on Litigation support systems, there were some notable participants at the conference presenting document assembly solutions.  HotDocs was there as part of LexisNexis’ Total Practice Management initiative; DealBuilder with it online document assembly system powered by a unique “relevance engine”; Perfectus Solutions with its browser-based IPManager document creation and delivery system; iXIO with its innovate online document modelling solution (Q-Shift); and Microsystems with its Word-ML basis document creation system (D3).

I met with each of the vendors.  Several of the products are ones that we support.  DealBuilder, DealBuilder, GhostFill, Time Matters and Perfectus.

We were impressed by the level of energy and innovation in the document assembly space.  This is not meant as a review of these products.  That will come later.  But rather, a recognition that there is some serious programming talent coming into developing document assembly solutions.  There are more tools than ever, and more powerful tools that ever to help firms and corporations provide document creation services.

HotDocs is working on HotDocs 2006. … Under the hood are dozens of new features for “true” application developers.  When the new HotDocs 2006 comes out we will review it.  For now, to see what can be done with HotDocs, please view the link below and take a tour of some of our videos.

MicroSystems, a new entrant in the space, brings D3.  This a cross between a knowledge management capture tool, clause picker and Word-ML based document assembler.  It doesn’t fit the classical document assembly template environment, being tied closely to Word-XML and SQL database engine.  It is very flexible in handling a number of the features typically handled by major Macro-packs like SoftWise, or numbering and metadata cleaners like those from Payne Consulting and Levitt & James and WorkShare. It strength is as a Word add-on, and clause management structure.  However, it is weak in handling complex logic and dialog scripting.  Rather than presenting dialogs, the D3 assembler presents the “document” as a living editable template, and then steps through the document, presenting questions seriatum as the user walks through the document.  These fields are stored as WordML tags which can be “reassembled”.  Viewed this way, it is more of an enhanced document builder tool, rather than an interview-driven document assembler.

DealBuilder just announced the release of DealBuilder 2.7 which brings to market more than 500 new features.  Key new features include a new web-based data reporting application, enhanced end-user experience on DealBuilder questionnaires, expanded use of mark-up within DealBuilder Master Documents, additional Administration features and a new, easy to deploy DealBuilder.Server installer.  We will be announcing shortly a major DealBuilder online system which we designed and built.  It is a world-class product with even more power.  It’s relevance engine is a major benefit for those authors who have not mastered (or choose not to master) dialog scripting.  The system does however, handle incredibly complex rule structures, and resolves them to determine and ask only those variables relevant to the current answer set in use.

Perfectus has a recently released new build.  It is has a powerful GUI for building Interviews.  It has powerful template set, work flow, and document management tools built into the product that make it a total out of the box on-line solutions. The tools are all .NET and XML and fully addressable.  There is a great GUI with drag and drop development.  Simple templates can be built rapidly.  More complex business logic can be built into the system.  The one drawback is that each unique rule has to be tagged and named.  Since it is using XML tags instead of a put text markup as GhostFill and HotDocs currently do (or as the DealBuilder author supports), the developer is limited by the way XML allows tags to be named.

iXIO’s Q-Shift is like an online version of D3.  It’s has a document parsing tool that takes a Word document and turns it into an on-line document model.  The paragraphs are turned into entries in a master clause banks that can be pulled together on the fly.  Clauses can be conditional, or required, at the designers election.  You can preview the clauses and build your document from the model.  Like D3 q-Shift lacks support for Dialogs … it presents the variables in single-variable dialog boxes as it runs through the assembly, and has limit support for complex business logic.

For additional information, please visit our document assembly videos where we showcase a number of applications of these products. Video Tours

Basha Systems releases Wealth Transfer Planning on HotDocs

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It has been over a year of hard work, but the new Wealth Transfer Planning, SmartContent Practice System(tm) has been released.  Basha Systems has ported the SmartWord’s based estate planning templates over to HotDocs.  The system features a unique custom interface to HotDocs that supports Firm Preferences, a separate Client and Matter Interview, Profile settings, customizable Templates and customizable Stylesheets.  It represents a “revolution” in the way to handle document assembly.  The efforts of myself, Ian Burrows and Rose Rowland are to thanks.  Basha Systems will be providing ongoing support for the templates as well as extensive customization services.

Well … we are done.  The product has shipped.  Be sure to look through the training videos.

This is an “opus” for which we retain major bragging rights.  We have pushed the envellope for what HotDocs can do, using a number of innovations in data transfer and contextual help.  The system is at once complex and simple.  For those users of SmartWords based system, we have consolidated interviews that often went on for 50 dialogs into coherent single interview of less than 15 dialogs to handle even the most complex estate planning documents.

It has been over a year of hard work, but the new Wealth Transfer Planning, SmartContent Practice System(tm) has been released.  Basha Systems has ported the SmartWord’s based estate planning templates over to HotDocs.  The system features a unique custom interface to HotDocs that supports Firm Preferences, a separate Client and Matter Interview, Profile settings, customizable Templates and customizable Stylesheets.  It represents a “revolution” in the way to handle document assembly.

There are a number of people to thank.  The efforts of myself, Ian Burrows and Rose Rowland at Basha Systems; and the efforts and vision of Trish McLelland and Mike Graham at Interactive Legal Systems who had the confidence, the wherewithal, the stamina and the vision to see the project through.

Basha Systems will be providing ongoing support for the templates as well as extensive customization services. Please feel free to contact us for a demo of the system.  Whether you are considering purchasing the system, or using a system just like it, please give me a call.

QC Techniques for HotDocs

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Some thoughts you might consider in providing QC for your templates.

Test, test, test … That is is the only way to fully debug your templates.  There is no replacement for having someone else test your templates.  Be sure to have your testers send you their comments and their answer files.  For this purpose we have set up a private board for posting comments and issues (www.bashasys.net).

Once you have the answer file, run the assembly and spot the issues.  Keep reassembling until all the issues are resolved.  Use Word Comments and the Reviewer toolbar to add comments and then navigate through them.

In HotDocs, you can test portions of the template.  Just highlight (select) the port of the template you want to test, and then click on the Test button on the HotDocs Toolbar.

Off-Label Uses of HotDocs

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Just for fun, I have included some interesting off-label uses of HotDocs.

Related Link: Litigation Support for Time Matters

Most of the time, we use HotDocs for the boring on-label uses to generate legal and business documents.  However, on some occasions we have been called on to do something fun:

Santa’s Workshop – Built a fictional application to manage contracting and job assignments for the North Pole.  We then featured the application on Holiday greeting cards.

Litigation Support – Document Profiling. Wrote an application to allow you to build and categorize a document production. Using dynamic list building features, every time a name is mentioned in a document profile it gets added to a master list that populated the To, From, CC, and Mention listings.  Client didn’t want to spring for a LitSupport system, but already had HotDocs.  A better solution is our Litigation Support plugin for Time Matters

HTML Tip Generator – Use of HotDocs to pull data from Time Matters Custom Form and to generate HTML Page with dynamic javascript for Tips on how to use HotDocs.  See the results at http://www.bashasys.com/hotdocs/hdtips.html.

Licensing Negotiation Workshop – CLE – Use of HotDocs to generate a term sheet after a two-hour staged negotation.  Instead of using Powerpoint to illustrate the points, we used HotDocs.

Online Commercial Lending Systems

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In the past week I have been approach twice by people seeking to buy or build on online commercial lending document assembly system and asked for the appropriate platform.  As a consultant, I patiently explained the options and why merely purchasing a system would expose the company to unacceptable risks; that while I was a lawyer turned programmer, this went beyond the risks I was willing to assume as an automator. In so doing, the issue arose, what warranty does an automator make as to the legal viability of the forms produced.

The Inquiry

I want to start a lending business producing loan documentation for all 50 states.  Can you direct me to some forms I can use.  I want to automate them, let people enter information over the internet.  And of course, they need to be legally viable and enforceable in all 50 states.  Can you help me.

The Reply

Sure.  Do you have the forms.  I can build you a system and get you online for a reasonable fee in a reasonable amount of time.  You have a choice of platforms, each with their benefits and their limitations. The choice between HotDocs, GhostFill and DealBuilder depends on where you want to put your money, how you want to deploy the system, and who will be using the system.

Why there can be no warranty

Most if not all software agreements disclaim “consequential damages” or limit liability to the cost of the license.  Any other approach and the development of software is not cost effective. We can warrant that the software will present and interview, and that based on the selected items certain text will be included or excluded.  We cannot warrant that the selection of particular text is legally valid. For that you need a lawyer.

Why You Need a Lawyer

Where I part ways is over the content.  I can build the business logic, the rules, the work flow and collect a nice sum in exchange for my valuable efforts.  But I will not be the lawyer.  When a million dollar loan defaults and the language of the default clause gets exercised, I don’t want my words on the hook that a judge will say, “this clause is not enforceable; perhaps in New York that’s the way they do things, but here in Oklahoma, we require __________ and you failed to include that in your loan agreement.

Moreover, even if I had an “enforceable” set of multistate forms for today, tomorrow, a new court decision in Oklahoma, could change the standard and require modification of my forms.  Sure, we can get a piece of paper that has the business terms, but it is the nuances that make the paper have its value as commercial paper.  If I were lending tens of millions of dollars, I would want to make sure such paperwork was effective.

Value of Document Assembly

In writing this, I am not knocking the use of document assembly for online commercial lending.  It is actually a fabulous idea, incredibly cost effective and profitable.  The typical bank lending process is slow and fraught with “inefficiencies” that can be eliminated.  A company like ING Bank can have an entirely online system, automating many of the banking processes and eliminating the opportunity for human error.  When applied to lending, document assembly allows you to support real business logic and conditional language, mapped against a legally valid form and allows you to offer a range of flexible financing options.  I am all for it.  My only concern is that you retain legal counsel in building the business logic and in maintaining that business logic.

Negotiation Strategies and Document Modelling

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The goal in document assembly is to “model” the transaction.  A Canadian attorney once explained to me, we don’t have forms and templates, we have document models, which contains structures and details.  Viewed from this perspective, the goal in template development is to build a better model of the ultimate transaction. The result is that negotiations are quicker, and more focused on concepts as opposed to crafty language.

A few years ago, I spoke to a Canadian attorney about my business … building expert systems and automated templates. After several fruitless attempts to make my self understood (templates, document assembly, form building), his face lit up with a smile … Yes, he said, you mean “document modelling”.  That what we call it up here.

Relieved that I had finally made myself understoods, I stopped to ponder the meaning of the word, “document modelling”.  It actually makes more sense.  Document assembly connote an “assembly line” at a factory where unskilled or semi-skilled labors trained in very narrow tasks, combine in a work flow process to produce a complex product, the design of which would be well beyond their individual capabilities, absent the “assembly” process.

Many lawyers, looking at document assembly software shrug their shoulders and grunt: “that’s paralegal work, why should I get involved.  If the paralegal or junior attorney has to work harder, all the more profits for me.  Sure, I will spend some money, getting them more productive, but it really isn’t worth my attention or time to expend much throught on it.

A Paradigm Shift

When you change the term to document modelling, the image of a meterioroligist or a seismologist comes to mind, carefully looking at the patterns of minute details, case studies, history, forces of nature and on that basis building a model into which data can be fed that will predict the next hurricane or earthquake.  An activity of that sore is worth the attention of a real specialist, one with great knowledge.  One doesn’t want a hack doing the weather prediction when one needs to plan a 200 person reception in the great outdoor.

Document modelling is what a good document assembly expert does; he or she looks at the documents, the patterns of variations, and extrapolates what would happen if …. The model and the options are built in anticipation of a specialist providing real data from which to then create a document.

Effect on Negotiations

One of the inherent weaknesses of document assembly tools is the ability to deal with “post assembly” revisions to the transactional document.  You can’t have your cake (of automation) and eat it to (be able to edit and reassemble).  This weakness, however, is a hidden strength in that the efficient use of a document assembly is to create a “best first draft” … A best first draft is define is a document that represents the understanding of all the parties, and not just the starting position of one of the parties.

The effect is that it forces negotiations to focus on “terms” and concepts, and not on “words”.  What is the structure that is acceptable to the parties; where does the risk lie; what is the reward; how is the revenue shared.  All of these are concepts that can be reduced to rules, facilitating a reassembly.  The better and more sophisticated the model, then the better the document.

A Side Effect

New Yorkers are known for “take no prisoners” negotiation style.  Despite years of “getting to yes” and the “art of negotiation” you still find people whose approach is screw first, and then back off.  These negotiations can be very wasteful.  Except in major contracts, the result is a major capital cost on the transaction that has no upside.

With document modelling, you can take the approach of a “First Best Offer”.  You start out in the middle because the drafting is designed to reflect what is fair in light of the business deal.  The document model tracks the term sheet, rather than the ideas of an attorney (not party to the initial negotiations) coming up with a model.

Getting Past the 80/20 Rule in Building Document Assembly Applications

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Document assembly projects are subject to the 80/20 rule … the final 20% takes 80% of the time.  And for that reason, many projects don’t get perfected.  When a system is for internal use, the benefits of automation are good enough; but when turned into an saleable application, or a client-focused application, much more is required.  This blog focuses on techniques for working with the template to reduce the time to get from 80 to 100%.

The 80/20 Rule

It is said on any software project (make that any projects), that the first 80% of the work, takes 20% of the time, and the final 20% of the work, takes 80% of the time.  Thus, the bulk of a project will be complete, but the finishing works takes four times as long. The result is that many projects get started, but few get truly finished.

Good ‘Nuff Document Assembly

Most document assembly systems are for internal use.  In the hands of a capable HotDocs or GhostFill programmer, the time it takes to draft a complex lease or prepare a credit agreement can be dropped from 10-20 hours down to a 15-30 minute interview.  That still leaves several hours that can be spent “cleaning up” the document formatting and fixing the detritus left by unanswered variables or poor coding.  Such systems will give you a healthy profit, and a high ROI.

Such systems are generally designed to enhance the legal business of the “author” of the system.  Often the questions only make complete sense to the author who created the system or a trusted assistant.  The ROI is limited to enhancing a particular practice.  When asked whether a “client” could use the system is published to a secure web server, the invariable response is “no” … too complication and the product is NOT FINAL.

Client-Facing Systems and Commercial Applications

When building a system that a “client” will see, the ball is in a different court.  You are off the stick-ball court and into the stadium where the expectations are much higher.  On the interview level, there is an expectation that the questions will be clear, relevant, and not contain any typos. See my article on Polish elsewhere in this blog.

Moreover, when the document comes out, it will not come out as a Microsoft Word document that is editable; it will come out as a PDF document that is printable.  There will be no opportunity to fill in the blanks left unanswered, fix up the formatting, remove the extra carriage returns, and fix the typos.

Rule 1: Build a Style Sheet

If you hope to cut down the time it takes to acheive the final 20%, you need to think through all the stumbling blocks that take up time (proofing, correcting, testing etc) and systematize them.  One of the biggest time savers is a Word Style Template … this is a word document that contains sample text formats for each way you intend to format document.

The style sheet contains a named paragraph style that exactly matches the format you are seeking in the final document.  To make this tool even more effective, you can assign hot-keys to the most commonly used styles.  To change the style of text in a document you can then either apply a different style, or open the style editor in Word and change the style’s attributes.

Rule 2: No Duplicate Carriage Returns

Once enforced, this convention will save hours of reformatting, because it will FORCE you to define word paragraph styles for every possible formatting convention.  Once defined, you can then make quick global changes throughout all the templates, rather than having to spot check every single document for spacing issues.

Rule 3:  Spacing Convention following CONDITIONS

The implementation of this convention regarding spacing following a conditional rule will differ depending on the document assembly program you us.

  • In HotDocs you should put IF/END IF and REPEAT/END REPEATS that span a whole paragraph or multiple paragraph on a separate line from the text of the paragraph.  Inside a paragraph, there should be NO SPACE if the text int the clause could begin the initial sentence of the paragraph.  If, however, it is internal to the paragraph, you should provide a singe (or in the case of a sentence) a double space immediately following the expression.
  • In GhostFill a KeepBlock or DeleteBlock should begin inside the paragraph to be kept with the EndBlock on the line immediately following the conditioned paragraph.  If you wish to have the rule outside the paragraph, use a Shreek “|” followed by a carriage return, with the closing brace at the very start of the conditioned paragraph.  The rules for clauses inside the paragraph are the same as for HotDocs.
  • In DealBuilder the conditional braces must start inside the conditioned paragraph and close at the very end of the conditioned paragraph.  By using usage computations (that are defined elsewhere) or VMM numbered notation, you can keep the code readable.  Internal to the paragraph, the same spacing conventions apply.

Rule 4: Normal is NOT your Base

In building a style sheet in word, take advantage of word’s cascading style sheet, that lets you build a style from a base and variations on that base.  In doing so, make sure that the base style is NOT based on Normal.  If you don’t, depending on the user’s machine, you may find your documents coming out in the wrong font, with the wrong text size … unintended consequences that are beyond your control.

Rule 5: Beta Test

Get someone else to do assemblies … maybe even some who doesn’t know your area of practice.  The questions need to make sense.  You will find them doing “illogical” things that will throw off errors in the text that you need to trap for.  These are either errors in conditioning variables on the dialog, or errors in the conditioning of text in the template.  Read the resulting document.  Use Word’s comment capability to have the user add comments “in situ” … and then you Review Comments to slog through them.  Be sure to have the beta tester SEND you their answer file (in the case of HotDocs, GhostFill or DealBuilder) or in the case of DealBuilder, in transaction mode, have them tell you the name of their answer file.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

These rules may seem minor in the greater scheme of things, but when the goal is 100%, every bit of planning can help.  We have found that the time spent on these matters has allows us to bring systems to 100% in less time.