DocsAfterDark

This month, Jeff, John, and Danielle discuss the advancements made in HotDocs Advance and how to convert templates from HotDocs Classic. John introduces the team to Bigle Legal, a web-based document automation system desgined to support multiple languages. Industry news includes some exciting enhancements to TheFormTool's Aurora and Woodpecker.

Back by popular demand, Alex Melehy and Helen Coyne from Woodpecker join Jeff, John, and Danielle this month. Alex and Helen tell us about some of the wonderful new features they've added to the product, including page breaks and external questionnaires; how they use agile development practices to implement new features quickly; and how they train their clients to become automation wizrds in no time. Customarily, our guests provide our document fact, and Helen did not disappoint. We think it's the best one yet!

This month Jeff, John, and Danielle are joined by Judie Rahman, client solutions manager at BigHand. After covering document assembly news, including John's appearance at ILTACON regarding document assembly and artificial intelligence (see the video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRbn05ZR_uc), we bring Judie "onstage" and discuss BigHand's document production tools and how they've helped customers during COVID-19. Judie talks us through how document production has changed for legal professionals during the pandemic, how BigHand's offerings help employees focus and minimize distractions while working remotely, and how to optimize your document lifecycle from dictation to digital draft to delivery of work product. And, most importantly, how to get staffers up to speed on new technology in a challenging environment.

Ep 026 - Excel at Xpressing Yourself by John Federico, Jeff Schoenberger, & Danielle DavisRoe

A bit delayed, but July is up! This episode, John, Jeff, and Danielle talk about cool new features available from our friends in the web-based document assembly world. For those still firmly in the desktop automation camp, John walks us through how to connect Clio’s web software to HotDocs Classic by means of Faster SQL, JSON, and Microsoft’s SQL Server. A yellow brick road of possibilities! We also take some listener (e)mail on customizing Microsoft Word and building ribbons that have exactly what you what in the place you want it. Finally, find out what the moon landing, Michael Bay, and Dancing with the Stars have to do with July.

Back this month to our core subject, John, Jeff, and Danielle are deep in the document automation woods. When it comes to overhauling a template set, should you start fresh or Band-Aid them? Danielle and Jeff do point and counterpoint. Explore the ancient, for the Internet, article that sparked the debate: https://dsh.re/16bdb. John enlightens us on HotDocs' union statements and we discuss a document fact involving a more perfect union. Happy Summer!

Delayed by a month of coronavirus, we present our "live from the show floor" interviews with key legal tech vendors. Danielle and Jeff talk to Abacus Next about HotDocs Advance, ProCirrus about infrastructure as a service, all the more relevant given our work-from-home situation, and modern, web-centric document automation services Lawyaw and Woodpecker. We also discuss our favorite "Startup Alley" entrants and cool things from the show floor. Finally, see our document fact live and in-person (via the web) at tinyurl.com/abaart.

When Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, the British army band played the comic ditty "The World Turned Upside Down." Boy, hasn't it in the last few weeks! While recording in our triple-filtered, secure, undisclosed locations, John, Jeff, and Danielle talk remotely to each other about working remotely. Learn about three web-centric automation tools. What accommodations and offers have various legal tech vendors presented the community to help the forced-to-be-remote attorney? And we offer our personal tips to help make your work from home experience better.

Jules Verne has nothing on us! In this month's episode, John, Jeff, and Danielle talk about new features afoot in four automation powerhouses. TheFormTool's Aurora adds private-labeling capabilities and reaches out to the legal aid community. Woodpecker adds new PDF options and an enticing pricing model. XpressDox readies a new web-based publishing architecture. And AbacusNext's HotDocs Advance product brings modern interviews and simplified coding to an old favorite. We may not travel by steamship or rail, but buckle up for a good story.

For our 20th episode, Affinity partner Barron Henley joins the show; long-time listener, first-time caller. We discuss master component files in HotDocs, how you should handle rarely-changing, but modifiable text in the template development process, and Barron gives us a rundown on the history of WordPerfect in legal and, of course, why everyone should be using MS Word instead. Look holdouts - he's coming for you!

New Year, New Logo. Danielle becomes a permanent addition. Start the new year with great training from Affinity Insight. Learn how to "date" your documents so they're never wrong. Explore XpressDox new template publishing option. And listen to John reminisce about computers from the 80s.

Jeff and John are joined by Danielle this month. The trio discuss Affinity's new subscription training program, Affinity Insight. John details his latest work with document automation for PracticeMaster and LawBase, two case management programs. Finally, the team ends the podcast year with each member describing a favorite holiday tradition, one of which now involves zombies!

Jeff and John are joined by Danielle this month. The trio discuss John and Danielle's trip to Chicago for training on Litera's Forte document assembly product, Jeff's trip to Clio's Cloud Conference in San Diego, and where the team will be in a busy couple of year-end months. We also take some questions from our mail bag and share with you what we're thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Jeff and John are joined by Danielle this month. The trio discuss two newer players in document automation - Lawyaw and Knackly, both of which offer a web-centric model of document creation. Additionally, Danielle previews new XpressDox features, John and Danielle discuss their upcoming trip to Litera in Chicago, Danielle details a powerful Word macro, and we all learn about an important October document.

With the whole team present, September 2019's podcast reviews our recent Affinity HotDocs Academy held in Columbus, Ohio. In addition to a new teaching approach, we discuss what we taught our attendees and what we learned from them. A complete success! Was it a good thing? I would say exactly that.

For August 2019, Jeff, John, and Danielle investigate the listener-requested topic of document comparison tools, both those you already own and those you can purchase. Also, John and Danielle tell us about their "XpressDox Xperience" with XpressDox in Atlanta, learning a powerful and approachable document automation product.

For this heart-of-summer episode, Jeff, John, and Danielle do a deep dive into getting the most document bang-for-your buck out of your case management system. We discuss general system architecture and how to design case management and document automation so that they work together symbiotically.

This month on DocsAfterDark, Adam, Cyara, Jeff, and John discuss TheFormTool's latest offering, the web-based Aurora Sunrise, reflect on how to design the right templates for the right audience, review proper auto-numbering strategies, and preview two incredible automation learning opportunities.

This month on DocsAfterDark, Danielle, Jeff, and John follow-up on a Microsoft Word issue, talk about true/false versus multiple choice variables, and John takes us through an overview of HotDocs' newest offering. Danielle promotes an exciting new book to add to your summer reading list, and we preview our annual Affinity HotDocs Academy in August.

This month on DocsAfterDark, with John on special assignment, Cyara, Danielle, and Jeff cover a grab bag of developments: A new product launch from TheFormTool, important coding tips for XpressDox, how to properly test your code, and how to make April Fools of your coworkers.

This month on DocsAfterDark, Jeff and John are joined by Danielle. The team discusses a bug involving Office365’s version of Word, how to generate multiple documents from a single questionnaire using TheFormTool’s Doxsera product, and how to replicate dialogs in document automation. We also cover how we manage larger coding projects and give you a peek at where you can meet us in person over the coming year.

In this month's DocsAfterDark, Jeff, John, and Adam tackle some coding puzzlers they encountered working with clients such as how to parse estate plan names, punctuation paragraphs in corporate documents, and using a "search and destroy" technique on RTF formatting in databases.

Ep 007 - It's a Good Thing - New Year's Resolutions for your Documents by John Federico, Jeff Schoenberger, & Danielle DavisRoe

In episode 6 of DocsAfterDark, Jeff, John, and Danielle discuss how you can use computations in your automated documents for far more than just math. Prevent duplicative data entry, utilize logical "decision trees", and even make nouns possessive through the use of text, number, and date computations.

In this episode of DocsAfterDark, Jeff, John, and Danielle tackle some issues automation users experience in the creation and testing of legal templates, as well as ways to avoid those pitfalls with clever coding and testing protocols.

Learn how to save money and use your existing legal technology to generate documents more efficiently.

From the new and improved sound-studio at Affinity Consulting... Episode 3 - Gold Standard Templates with Jeff and John and special guest Affinity Consultant Adam RIngel.

Learn how to manipulate text quickly and effortlessly in Microsoft Word.

Affinity Senior Consultants John Federico and Jeff Schoenberger host a new podcast debuting this month. Called DocsAfterDark, each month John and Jeff will dive into the why, how, and benefits of document automation, share some war stories, and end with a fascinating historical document fact.