Document automation is a continuum that starts with sample documents and ends with fully integrated compliance systems. Wherever you find your practice on the continuum, the goal is to establish and maintain your solution as the sole repository for all text-based knowledge within your target. If it's properly organized and executed, though, you may be able to end your solution search right there. The first requirement is the most difficult to achieve. Studies have proven we now generate more paper, not less, than we did before word processing.
Paper remains the absolute standard of execution and enforceability.
But when it comes to document management, the tradition of a paper-based form bank or filing system simply doesn't fill the bill. The greatest challenge is tracking models you obtain externally. Your best sources may come from opposing counsel or from public documents-on paper or in a variety of electronic formats other than the one you use. To make these drafting gems useful as future examples, however, you need to capture them in your word processor when you first see them. If you receive a document electronically but in a different format from the one you use, your word processor probably can convert it.