Now that you've had time to assimilate everything you saw at LegalTech, please dish for the sake of your peers who did not attend.
On Monday morning, John Bartleby, Esq. woke up with a spring in his step. LegalTech was coming to New York. Mr. Bartleby (aka the "Scrivener")
wanted to see what new gems of technology were available to transform his real estate practice.
In particular, the Scrivener faced a crush of new work from a key client, a shopping mall developer. The Scrivener
had been retained as outside general counsel responsible for leasing the client's first shopping mall. Already, ten more malls
were on the drawing board and would need to be leased in the next six months. In the next six months, the Scrivener would be required
to negotiate and execute over 1,000 commercial leases.
The Scrivener, an experienced negotiator and drafter, knew what terms would
be acceptable to the client. He also knew what special concessions
might be required to execute the innumerable agreements. He came
to LegalTech looking for a solution that would enable him to negotiate
and draft 1,000 custom leases cost effectively for his client and
profitably for his partners.
THE EXHIBITOR LIST
Reviewing the LegalTech guide, the Scrivener's attention was drawn
to HotDocs, Rapidocs, ThinkDocs, and GhostFill, makers of "document
assembly" software. He also knew he should visit LexisOne,
DL Drafting Libraries, ThinkDocs and WestGroup, purveyors of "smart"
real estate forms. Prior to LegalTech, he made arrangements to meet
with developers of SmartWords and SpeedLegal on the exhibition floor.
His day was cut out. The Scrivener alloted a half hour to carefully
evaluate each product and its suitability to his needs.
THE REQUIREMENTS
The Scrivener was looking for a technological solution that would
allow him to maximize his revenue from negotiating the 1,000 custom
leases while minimizing his expenses (whether for attorney time
or disbursements). He was looking for a tool that:
- Would allow him to build the perfect master lease, with all the
bells and whistles required to address each of the situations that
might arise;
- Would be simple to use;
- Could draw on information from his client's tenant database;
- Would allow him to post lease profiles to his client's financial
management database; and
- Would allow him to create and send the lease to remote sites.
HOTDOCS
The Scrivener's first stop was at the HotDocs kiosk. It was a little
difficult to find. There were big blazing signs for Lexis/Nexis
and LexisOne. Only the little box that said HotDocs 5.1 gave a clue
that there were salesmen for HotDocs. The Scrivener stopped for
a demo. First he saw the automated BNA Real Estate Forms. They were
impressive, but not geared to the complex commercial leases he would
need to create. Then he went through a demo and saw how he could
either customize the forms or build his own template with relative
ease. Variables were written in plain English. The dialogs were
attractive. HotDocs was the "market leader." Everyone
had a copy of HotDocs and it worked with both Word and WordPerfect.
The Scrivener was happy, but decided to keep looking.
RAPIDOCS
The Scrivener visited Epoch Software in the ASP pavilion. The salesman
opened a Web browser and started answering a series of questions
on the right. As the questions were answered, the text of the lease
agreement was rewritten before his eyes on the left. The salesman
said that Epoch's U.S. affiliate <http://www.mylawyer.com>
could host the document on its site and allow the Scrivener to collect
revenue every time someone wanted to assemble a lease. Wow! There
was one catch, the Scrivener would have to learn a new word processor
-- Rapidocs, in addition to the syntax and coding for building an
automated template. The Scrivener moved on.
GHOSTFILL
The Scrivener stopped by at Korbitec's booth to view GhostFill.
He found that GhostFill was closely integrated with Microsoft Word
(but not WordPerfect). It worked as both a desktop application and
a Web-based application. It had a very elegant set of dialogs. It
also was "out of the box" ODBC compliant, being able to
read and write directly to databases. It would be able to draw data
from his client's tenant database and post information to his client's
financial management database. With GhostFill's power, came a cost.
Variable naming schemes were restricted, giving it a "techie"
feel. Overall, however, the system was impressive.
SMARTWORDS
The Scrivener ran into a SmartWords developer over lunch who showed
him <http://www.lawontheweb.com> and some of the underlying
technology. SmartWords was a powerful enterprise product that took
the best of both word processing technology and database technology
to create the most customizable document assembly dialogs. It supported
powerful scripting and rules. It could draw from and post to multiple
database tables (both internal and external). In the hands of an
experienced developer, SmartWords was a true rapid deployment tool.
It also had an Internet Explorer plug-in that gave full functionality
over the Internet. The Technology Group in Baltimore had a staff
of application developers who would be willing to work with him
to build the perfect solution to his workflow and assembly needs.
One catch, the product was only available through certified consultants,
and generally in connection with a consulting project. For the right
application, it would be worth the cost.
SPEEDLEGAL
During the cocktail hour, the Scrivener met with the President of
SpeedLegal. SpeedLegal's document assembly engine was XML-based.
It required the use of an XML-editor. At present there was no easy
tool to migrate Word or WordPerfect documents to XML format that
would be recognized by their software. So the templates would need
to be built from the ground up, paragraph by paragraph. However,
once you got over that obstacle (a big hurdle), the actual document
assembly engine and Web interface were truly cutting edge. The program
flew over the Web as XML objects and rules melded together into
a smooth flowing interface. Unfortunately, the product was still
in beta.
THINKDOCS
The Scrivener swung by DataTech Software, the makers of ThinkDocs.
ThinkDocs is a new entrant in the document assembly tool business.
They have had a proprietary graphic forms engine for a while, but
only recently have produced a document assembly software package.
In particular, he was interested in their Real Estate forms package
with its live variables. This meant that he could change the answer
to a variable in one form and it would instantly update all the
other related forms. He looked at the forms package and at ThinkDocs,
thinking a perfect system would allow him to meld their canned forms
with his own additional forms and to modify their canned forms.
That would save a lot of development time reinventing the forms.
Sadly, they said, the graphic forms engine was not being released
for use by lawyers so he could not modify their existing forms.
And, at present, there was no link between ThinkDocs and their graphic
forms, but one was under development. When the Scrivener looked
at ThinkDocs, he was impressed by the post-assembly interactivity.
But he was struck by their odd treatment of conditional text ...
ThinkDocs required the creation of a separate variable for each
instance of conditional text, making the template in effect unreadable:
the attorney could not review the conditional text in the template.
LEXISONE/WESTGROUP/DL DRAFTING LIBRARIES
It was getting late in the day and the Scrivener needed to get back
to client business. He passed by LexisOne and noticed they had some
free real estate forms on their Web site. Since they weren't the
forms he needed (he needed to build something client specific),
he continued on. He visited West Group which had no real estate
forms. And he swung by DL Drafting Libraries. He liked the titles
on the forms, but did not like the tool kit for opening up the forms
to customize.
RETURN TO THE OFFICE
The Scrivener returned to the office. He had seen a lot that he
liked. He wished to include elements of HotDocs, GhostFill, SmartWords,
ThinkDocs and Rapidocs in a package for his clients. He resolved
to spend some more time evaluating these products and talk to some
consultants about their preferences and their reasons. He knew that
the solution lay in these products and over the next few weeks,
he would have to make his choice. He also knew that a properly designed
set of templates could be easily moved from one software package
to another if the set of features justified the expense. He had
a lot to think about.
