Today’s Tools

Marc LauritsenCapstone Practice Systems

Sinch Precedent Automation ConferenceOctober 2006

1976

The World Legal Tech ML

VietnamWatergate

SelectrixLexis

Wordprocessors

Law schoolCritical Legal

StudiesHLAB

1986

The World Legal Tech ML

Iranian revolution The PCWordPerfect

Legal services

Clinical edPERICLES

Doc assembly

“Legal expert systems are so totally dreamy!”

1996

The World Legal Tech ML

Fall of Soviet UnionAIDS epidemic

EmailWeb

Doc mgtCase mgtPractice systems

HLS R&DTechshowSubTech

Capstone 1

2006

The World Legal Tech ML

Dot-com boom9/11

Iraq war

WirelesseDiscoveryeLawyering

Doc Assembly

againBlogs,

podcasts

Capstone IIAmeriCounse

lTIG projects

2016

The World Legal Tech ML

UN relocated to BeijingHunt for bin Laden

continues

Ubiquitous connectivity

Seamless access to all imaginable

contentTelepresenceHardware is

inconspicuousIntelligent systems claim citizenship;

Humans claim animal rights

Will you still need me, will you still feed

me?

A Quick History of Legal Document Assembly

• 1970s and before– research and

experimentation– early forms (paper systems,

memory typewriters, Wang)

• 1980s– word-processing macros &

merges– early commercial tools– large firms and pioneers– ABA special interest group

• 1990s– explosion of

‘platforms’– published form sets– evangelism and

islands– niche practices

• 2000s– moving into the

mainstream– dominance of

HotDocs– new players– Web delivery

Commercially offered legaldocument assembly engines

• ABF Processor• ActiveDocs• Agility• AmazingDocs• Atlis• BizDocs• Black Letter• Blankity-Blank• Boilerplate• Brentmark Document

Assembler• CAPS

• Cetara WordShare• Clause-It• D3• DAS@H• DealBuilder• DocBuilder• DocCon Docdolittle

[former name of Perfectus?]

• Documaker (Docucorp)• Document Modeler

(LegalWare)• DocuMENTOR

• Docuscribe• eDrafter• Exari (formerly

SpeedPrecedent, from SpeedLegal)

• Expertext• FastDraft• First Draft• FlexPractice• Form Bank• General Counsel• GhostFill• Grantha• HotDocs• ILS Techniques• IntelliDox Intelligent

Document Solutions (Cincom)

• IQDocs • JumpStart• KillerDocs• Masterdraft• Memba Genesis• Millrace• NovaDocs• Oban• Overdrive• Pathagoras• Perfectus• PowerTxt• Precedent• ProDoc• Qshift• Rapidocs• Scrivener

Document Assembly 500 Years After Columbus:Consumer Expectations in 1992

(Paper for the 1992 American Bar Association Techshow)

“Features now present in most serious document assembly

products”• Validity checking of user responses.• Separation of interface logic and

document logic. • Import and export of text.• Import and export of data.• Dynamic interface.• System‑specific reference and

explanatory material.

“Features present in some document assembly

products”• On‑screen, while‑you‑watch document assembly.

• Pre‑set and "suggested" answers.

• Menus, dialogues, and other user interface building blocks.

• Compound and dynamic data entry screens.

• Navigational freedom: support for backing up, jumping around, and retracing one's steps in the course of a session.

• Interoperability with WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, and other word processors ‑‑ in the sense of good quality conversion of formatted documents and automatic launching of applications.

• Built‑in relational databases or dynamic access to external data resources.

• User annotation of answers.• Author annotation of

documents (e.g., via optionally printed explanatory footnotes.)

• Support for transaction management and decision support in addition to "mere" document assembly.

• Hypertext‑like resource materials.

• Outlines and tables of contents that give users and authors high‑level overviews of system structure.

• Mouse support for picking choices from menus and dealing with dialogue boxes.

• Menu‑driven approaches to system building and other forms of simplified system building.

• Pop‑up lists of variables, operators, etc. from which authors can paste.

• Ability to edit answers while in a document and have it automatically reassembled.

• Support for user‑level edits of boilerplate text that survive a particular session or document draft.

• Ability to permanently edit both the text and logic of models while building a document.

• Utilities that allow authors to search for components of their systems in terms of their names, contents, and structural role.

• End‑user revision of boilerplate text and variable insertion.

• Scripted invocation of external programs.

• Support for simultaneous multiple users (allowing such things as interactive accumulation of a work group's expertise.)

• Ability to run systems under development without having to go through a compilation step.

• Interactive debuggers

“What no one is doing much with yet”

• Graphical interfaces.• Robust collaborative

environments.• Full functional integration with

other law office automation components.

• True artificial intelligence.

Some intervening advances

• Graphical forms, PDF• SGML/XML• Web delivery and authoring• Automatic models from marked up

precedents

Two current frontiers

• Post editing reassembly

• Word processor as interface

Beyond Tools

• Knowledge architects• Economics• Vision• Leadership