Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a document assembly add-on for Microsoft Word (see article below), a touchscreen pocket computer (PDA), a litigation support program for managing discovery documents, an online electronic discovery workflow and project management application, and an iPhone fax app. Don't miss the next issue.
Document Dis-Assembly the First Step in Document Assembly
Few work-related tasks are as difficult as drafting legal documents. Even newly-minted lawyers with three years of law school and a bar exam under their belt lack the experience required for this task. But document drafting also involves a fair amount of tedious work. Nowadays, you can "outsource" such work to document assembly software, but some of these products seem like they require a software engineering degree — and you do not have any interest in going back to school.
Pathagoras 2010 … in One Sentence
Pathagoras is a document assembly solution that requires no programming knowledge to set up or use.
The Killer Feature
Pathagoras has always approached document assembly like a lawyer — you select clauses to create a rough draft, and then fill in the blanks with case-specific values such as your client's name, opposing party, etc. But moving clauses from existing documents into Pathagoras' clause libraries and books can consume a fair amount of time.
Pathagoras 2010's new "Term Works" technology automates this process. It provides the tools needed to "dis-assemble" a complete document into its core components. Open an existing document and then tell Pathagoras what separates the clauses — headings, paragraphs, or a simple character-set that you insert throughout the document. Pathagoras then dis-assembles the document, and stores each clause as a separate document using proper, meaningful names.
Because Pathagoras stores each clause as a Word document, it preserves all formatting such as italics, font size, etc. Pathagoras even preserves automatic paragraph numbering markers.
Other Notable Features
Pathagoras 2010 also features improved "DropDown Lists," which eliminate the need to manually dig through nested folders to find the document or clause you need to complete your document assembly project. Always on and always active, DropDown Lists reside at the top of your editing screen, and enable you to access any file within a designated folder with a single point-and-click. You can create up to ten DropDown Lists to access up to ten folders.
Other features include an Instant Database, which enable you to supply values to any variables in your document and save the assignments for reuse with other documents, Clause Sets for grouping clauses that you often use together, and built-in synchronization between your local hard drive and a network drive.
What Else Should You Know?
Pathagoras 2010 is a Microsoft Word add-on that works with Word 2000 and later on Windows. Pathagoras can convert your WordPerfect files into Word format so that you can extract their clauses using the new Term Works feature. You can also treat images as clauses for insertion into documents via the DropDown Lists. Pathagoras a2010 costs $379 for a single license or $799 for a 3-pack license. The company offers volume discounts for larger orders. Learn more about Pathagoras 2010.
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