Does It Compute?

Levels of Document Assembly

Everybody uses some form of document assembly, even if it is only the primitive, inefficient and error-prone “cut and paste” from an old document to a new document. But once you get beyond this, there are a number of levels of document assembly options.

The first is to use Word’s auto-text or similar features to automate whole paragraphs of text. This can range from closing signature blurbs (“Please feel free to contact us at .... if you have any further questions regarding this matter”) to more extensive paragraphs. I had one client who had about 20 or more auto-text entries to be used as canned objections to interrogatories, for example.  A commercial program, ActiveWords (www.activewords.com), extends this functionality to an industrial-strength level. For an interesting take on creating “boilerplate” documents, see the article by Vivian Manning on “Document De-Construction.”  She proposes creating a master document with all possible options and then “de-constructing” it by deleting what you don’t need. This might work in some cases but is still labor-intensive with respect to more advanced document assembly.

A second level is to create a system of Word templates that correspond to commonly used letters:  retainer agreements, various acknowledgments, etc.  Some firms may have 50 or more of these templates. Obviously the frequency of use has to be sufficient to justify the amount of work it takes to create such templates.

A third level is integration with Practice Management programs such as Amicus, Time Matters or Practice Master. This allows you to create Word templates that pulls information out of the Practice Management program and inserts it into Word. This can range from addresses, to docket numbers or client ids. I had a Trusts & Estates client who used this kind of system to assemble 50 pages of basic trust/will documents pulling the information from Amicus. This included basic Wills, Trust Agreements, Living Wills, Appointment of Health Care Agent, Power of Attorney and Designation of both Guardian and Conservator for both Client and Spouse. Sure, it cost him a fair amount of money to set up, but it reduced his drafting time to about 3 minutes. If all you want is a few basic types of form letters, it may not be worth your while to graduate to the next level.

The highest level of document assembly is dedicated programs that allow you to use intelligence or responses to an “interview” to assemble a document by pulling together relevant sections, paragraphs or even documents. Pathagoras (www.pathagoras.com) is one of the simpler programs of this type. HotDocs (www.hotdocs.com) and Exari (www.exari.com) are among the most sophisticated. You will probably want to use a consultant to do any extensive development of the latter two programs.

Cloud Version of Worldox GX3: Pixie Dust?

Isaac Asimov famously said that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Think of the cargo cults of World War II. So it is perhaps not surprising that the technology behind the Cloud/SAAS version of Worldox GX3 has been referred to by some clients as “Pixie Dust.”

Worldox has in fact filed a patent application for this new technology.

What is so revolutionary? 

Previous approaches to cloud computing have been implemented typically via web-based programs. In some cases this is mixed with thin clients, Remote Desktop, or Cisco or Microsoft published apps. These solutions are all or nothing: you can work in the cloud OR you can work on your desktop: the two do not communicate with each other (with the limited exception of mapped drives, mouse control, local printers, etc.). Document management programs such as NetDocuments get around this with an upload/download approach: you download a document to your desktop, work on it, then upload it back to the cloud (or vice-versa). That also is why almost none of the cloud-based practice management programs have any serious integration with Outlook except through similar upload-download routines.

The Worldox solution is a client server communication application that allows all locally installed applications to have full communication with the published version of Worldox hosted on a remote server: Word, Outlook, Acrobat, you name it.  How do they do it?  That’s where the patent comes in.

The cloud version of Worldox GX3 is NOT browser-based (thus eliminating the limitations that would have entailed). The user has full functionality, the program looks exactly the same as the desktop version, so there is no learning curve. But when you open a document in Word (or whatever), it opens from the cloud. The same integration applies to Outlook, Acrobat, or whatever.

The Cloud version of Worldox will be available as a SAAS offering, with a monthly subscription price.  Full release is likely to be some time early next year, although the “Enterprise” version which incorporates the cloud technology running on a private, in-house based cloud server, on top of the standard network-based program may be available this fall.

We Know Where You Are -- Every Minute

The New York Times recently published information released by cell phone companies in response to a congressional investigation showing that at least 1.3 million phone calls, text messages and other cell phone information were handed over the law enforcement agencies under the Bush-Obama “no warrant necessary” policies. And in fact this number is much too low, both because T-Mobile did not release information and because a single request for a dump of information from a given cell phone tower could include information for thousands of people logged into at that given.   The Times estimated that the total could be “several times higher” than the base number of requests. Most people never stop to “do the math,” which in this case is truly scary. If one-tenth of one percent of those requests (or 1,300) were cell phone dumps of 1,000 connections, that would double the number of calls. One percent would jump the total to 13 million. Five percent would make the total 65 million calls.

Essentially, cell phones have become tracking devices for the Googles of the world in addition to the cops. A recent British survey showed that making phone calls is only the fifth most common activity of cell phone users. Every time you access a web site, look up a restaurant, use a map, etc. you are being tracked. The GPS trackers embedded in smart phones make it possible to develop an entire profile, including where you are likely to be in the future.

Most people don’t really think about this, and have become accustomed to the utility that GPS locators provide. My Droid phone, for example, has four separate GPS locators: Google, Standalone GPS services, Verizon location services, and Share picture location (which tells the recipient of a phone where it was taken). While these can theoretically be turned off, almost nobody does so because the services they provide are so convenient.

Yes, you want your maps or navigation app when you are driving. Yes, you want to be able to look for nearby restaurants. But this carries with it the likelihood that for reasons best known only to them, the cops are tracking your location. 

Losing Integration

One of the most common complaints by firms that integrate third party programs with Word and/or Outlook – which is just about everybody – is that the integration sporadically “disappears.” This is more common with Outlook than Word, but can happen with both.  It is frequently preceded with a message that “Outlook encountered a problem with X dll [integration]. Do you wish to disable it?”  Without thinking, people just answer “Yes” and the integration is killed.

Most often, the integration can be reestablished by logging off and logging back in to the PC. Annoying, but doable.

Sometimes, however, the problem seems more intractable.  Here is what you need to check.

Word and Outlook.  Go to File | Options | Add-ins.  Look under “Inactive Application Add-Ins” and “Disabled Application Add-Ins” to see if your integration (usually a *.dll file) is listed. If it is, click “GO” next to the drop-down list initially entitled “COM Add-Ins.” If necessary select the appropriate additional option (Template, Disabled Add-Ins, etc.) and re-enable it.

A second problem can occur with third-party macros. If you get a message “macros disabled,” go to File | Options | Trust Center. Enable all macros. In my view, the fact that this is “Not recommended” is part of Microsoft’s approach of “You want secure?  We’ll give you secure. Then you’ll be sorry.”  If this message is to be taken seriously, Microsoft is recommending that you not integrate its software with anything else.  Enable all macros.  Note that some third party software has programmed it’s way around this error message, others have not.

Time Matters Continuing Disintegration

With the announcement that Jonah Paransky has moved from the LexisNexis Practice Management division to CounselLink, and the failure so far to appoint any new head, LexisNexis Practice Management has become leaderless. (Whether the move was voluntary or not is unclear.)

Further, Lexis has terminated (fired) the last remaining developer from the original TimeMatters team. So now there is absolutely no institutional knowledge of the TM code that goes back further than about 4 years. To say that this leaves TM rudderless would be an understatement.

So it is understandable that there have been rumors that the Practice Management division is up for sale.

The mantra among consultants used to be “there’s plenty of work for everybody.” It is perhaps a sign of Time Matters’ declining fortunes that consultants have turned carnivorous. Tom Rowe’s OTB Consulting has recently sued one of its former clients, the Doan Law Firm, as well as Frank Rivera’s Logicbit, makers of Houdini, Esq, for dropping Time Matters and the OTB Bankruptcy add-ins and switching to Houdini. I didn’t manage to plow through all the way to the end of the documentation, but here’s the link: http://logicbit.com/groups/esquire/weblog/0e9fa/

I am not in a position to assess the merits of the case, but on the face of it, suing a client for failure to continue the use of your software is a pretty sad state of affairs.

Things will only get worse.  As the number of clients who have either dropped the software or refused to pay LexisNexis’ extortionate  “Annual Maintenance Program” rates grows, so too will the rate at which the old software no longer integrates with changes to the operating system or the adoption of new versions of software that previously integrated with Time Matters or PCLaw. I find I seem to be getting an increased number of inquiries in the form: “I am using Version [X] of [Time Matters, PCLaw] and it no longer does [Y] or integrates with my new [Z]. I refuse to pay the AMP. What can I do?” Unfortunately, the answer is in the form of one of a variety of truisms: Suck it Up, Bite the Bullet, Fish or Cut Bait, etc.

I have somewhat changed my views on the subject of what to do. I used to say: “Well, despite the flaws, these are still the best programs around, so just pay up.”  Now I am more inclined to say: limp along if you can, and in the meantime most of the web-based programs have 30-day trials. Aggressively seek out the trials, put all your data for one or two clients into the trial version for a month and see if they will do what you need.

For example, Seth Rowland recently pointed me in the direction of a new web-based practice management program, Action Step, out of Australia/New Zealand.  For a first take, see Seth’s blog.