XML represents a shift in the way information is coded for the Web. The language offers a flexible, powerful means for describing data and the structure of that information, but not the way it looks in a browser. Legal documents are about communicating information. A person reading a legal opinion, for example, is concerned more with information the document communicates to the reader than the presentation of that document. Most electronic document formats in wide use today allow only for the storage of presentation information along with text.
Lawyers use information from documents over and over again.
Let's take the humble Writ of Summons. Certain pieces of information which are created on the document, may be used in many ways. Such information can include the names of parties, the date of filing, the value of the claim, the matter number and so on. If this information is typed onto a Writ of summons in a law firm, it is then filed in hard copy at the court and a court clerk in turn copies the information from the piece of paper into the court's computer system, the file at some point goes to the judge who hears the case. If a judgment is written, the judge's secretary types the judgment and copies the information from the file onto the cover sheet of the judgment.