The Oklahoma Bar Journal January 2024

documents. Some use forms and edit these with this client’s information. Some have a digital system where client information is stored and use copy/paste to put it into the form. Some have Word templates rather than Word docu ments as a starting point. Many law firms make good use of Word templates. Others only use the standard template. The data is one part of the equation. Creating the templates that the data will be exported to is also a critical step in the automation process. Luckily, creating basic templates is a fairly simple process in Microsoft Word. Most readers have a document creation process already in place. But some of the steps are copy/ paste, which does allow room for error, although not as much as retyping the data. And copy/paste will require a bit more time.

sometimes, this document is a starting point with more editing and drafting needed. Lawyers who use WordPerfect are sometimes referenced as being behind the times. But in terms of the ability to automatically create documents and save and reuse data for those documents, it was light years ahead of Microsoft Word back in the day. For years after Microsoft Word won the market-share war, Word trainers were doing training on how to use mail merge to automate your doc uments. Sophisticated automation back then required purchasing a third-party add-on. As Microsoft Word evolved and left behind its “Clippy” phase, it became a much more powerful document assembly tool. But, as always, with power comes complexity.

THE DATA AND THE TEMPLATES

Practice management software tools can assist you in managing all your clients’ information. It is certainly the most logical place to store client data that will be reused. If you don’t subscribe to a practice management solution and are shopping for one, pay attention to its features that can export the data to generate documents. There is a concept in utilities delivery called “the last mile.” Whether it is electrical service or internet service, if the final link in the data transfer process is weak, then the entire process is weak. For many law firms, the last mile is taking the client data that law firms now hold in digital form and seamlessly utilizing it to create documents – or at least the first draft of documents. Every law firm has a system to create

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THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL