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Standalone document assembly apps

RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers

Published: August 2, 2019

Document assembly capabilities come standard in most robust practice management programs like Rocket Matter, Clio, and MyCase (not to be confused with MySpace). But, of course, those are the most expensive ones, and so can be out of the price range of solo and small firms or attorneys who are just starting out.

But law practice is doc intensive, so an affordable standalone document assembly program that automates the more mundane writing tasks that surface regularly in even the smallest firms can be a great boon to a practice.

Here are four of these apps that you could take a look at (caveat, as my grandfather used to say—“you get what you pay for”):

The most well-known of these is probably HotDocs (https://www.hotdocs.com/; purchased recently by AbacusNext). HotDocs can meet a variety of document assembly needs and has a flexible combination of products that stretch from the desktop to the cloud. It works through the user’s development of templates over time. Pricing is not available on the website but has generated a number of user complaints—the old owners only charged a one-time purchase price, while the new owners have an annual charge that seems to be based on what products are being used. Some unhappy customers posting online out there.

XpressDox (http://xpressdox.com/) is a simple, customizable document assembly service that integrates with other programs (like Word and Adobe). Pricing is $350 per year per user up to 50 licenses, and less from there.

At a similar price but with functionality that only integrates with Word is Pathagoras (that is the correct spelling; https://www.pathagoras.com/). It works in plain text, using presently existing documents. Pathagoras doesn’t require training the app but presents forms or clauses on topics that can be brought up in a click and integrated into the doc. 90-day free trial available.

Finally is TheFormTool (https://www.theformtool.com/), an assembly app that ranges in price from free to $279 per year depending on the desired level of functionality. This app works with Word. Solos and lawyers starting out can probably use the free version with success, or stretch it to the $89 lifetime license desktop product.


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