I have converted my six person office to Macs and am going to switch from timematters (after ten years) to daylite. i need input from someone who has used daylite in a law practice and i need help from someone who would act as a consultant for training and maintenance
clark newhall
law office of clark newhall md jd
cnewhall@cnewhall.com

Well DL have come up with a couple more bits. They have expanded the range of merge keys and modelled a Law template database, which goes some way to addressing the merge issue. But.....

- all of the Merge Keys are related to a single Contact. In other words, the Organisation Merge Keys will relate to the Organisation 'linked' to the Contact.
- it is not clear how a second organisation's details will be treated where two are linked to one contact
- nor is it clear how the Project Merge Keys will work where multiple projects are linked to one contact
- if you select a Project and attempt to merge, Word, Excel and the other one are greyed out
- the issue of selecting and merging documents with multiple parties has not been addressed

Does anyone (feel free to chip in DL mob) have any thoughts on these things?

Thanks in advance

Tim,

I did notice that DL released a Law template in the newest revision. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet nor have I had an opportunity to check out the merge keys. That said, could you elaborate on how they have "expanded" them? IMHO, there are merge keys for just about everything which have been in place for quite some time.

Also, I wanted to throw my 2 cents in and say that it has been possible to get the details of more than one item for quite some time as well. For example, I have several templates which will take various contacts and, based on their roles (Plaintiff, defendant, clerk of court) and insert the appropriate details. It's not easy, but it's very possible. Same goes for time blocks. Like I said, it's not trivial, but you can certainly get a timeblock's details based on criteria like it's category, etc...

While we're on the subject though, I would like to reiterate my request to be able to merge letters to organizations that don't have a contact specified. I've requested this several times, and it's never gotten done. Also, in the same vein, as you obviously know, the merge engine is one of the most important things to many DL-using lawyers. I certainly would like to see some improvements to the built-in text editor (e.g. headers, footers, page numbering, etc.). I'm not asking for a full blown Word (or in my case, Pages) replacement here, but I certainly could do a whole lot more right in DL with just a handful of additional features...

Cheers George

Check out the new merge keys PDF which is under the Merge heading on the DL help page. It contains fields for Projects and Opportunities to build on the previous set of keys for contact and its associated organisation. Importantly, the merge keys include fields for customised "Extra fields", which allows the inclusion of any specialised data you can dream up. In our jurisdiction, for example, most legal instruments dealing with corporate entities requires an Australian Company Number or ACN to be included, which can be done via an extra field.

Can you explain "IMHO".

Can you further explain who you "get the details of more than one item" (I presume you mean a contact) into an external merge template? Perhaps you could share a template containing various contacts by way of explanation.

Thanks for your input and I'm keen to know more of what you know about Merging docs.

Tim,

First, sorry for the message board slang. "IMHO" is shorthand for In My Humble Opinion.

In any case, I looked at the Merge keys PDF and it occurred to me that we're talking about two different things. You're talking about merging with external apps and I'm talking about creating documents with the merge engine for the internal editor. Personally, I use the internal text editor in DL for most of my form documents. I only really use an external word processor if I'm doing something that requires a lot of formatting or other advanced text features (e.g. if I'm typing a brief).

I certainly understand that there might be many reasons that you have to use an external program and I'm not overlooking those, but let me highlight some of the key advantages of using the internal editor:

1. FAR, FAR more merge keys. If you look through at the Daylite Data Description PDF (part of the Daylite developer kit) and compare it against the PDF which you directed me to, you'll see what I mean. However, it should suffice to say that you're probably missing 90% of the merge engine's functionality if you're only using external merges.

2. Documents created with the internal editor are automatically linked. For some reason, my law partner likes to write in Word. I constantly have to remind him to copy and paste his finished product into DL so I can have past work available to me too. (I realize we could save on our server and link, which we do, but for a 1-2 page letter, it's easier to just paste it into DL. BUT, if you're creating in DL, then it's automatically there.

3. With a little creativity, you can probably do 90-95% of what you're doing in Word anyway. I have templates that I use on a daily basis that can generate an entire lawsuit in one click (once contact roles are set correctly and a few form values are filled in) which are entirely in DL. As I said before, there are limitations, but as far as I am concerned, they are greatly outweighed by the advantages most of the time.

Now, for the disadvantages. As I indicated previously, one of the big downsides of the built-in editor is the lack of some pretty basic word processing functions. I've asked for these on numerous occasions, but I understand that MC has higher priority things. A good example is headers and footers. Come on, how hard can this really be? The editor hasn't changed much since 1.X and I think it might be time for a FEW improvements here. Again, I'm not asking for, nor would I want a feature set like Word. Just some basic additions please.

In any case, my basic point is that I'm 99% sure that you can do what you're wanting to do right now. Can you do it with a merge to Word? I'm 99% sure the answer to that is "no"...

Tim,

I just realized that I didn't answer your question about multiple objects. Here is an example of a caption which inserts the Plaintiff and Defendant in the appropriate sections based on their roles in the project (BTW, it only works on the internal editor and there would obviously be tabs there, but the forum is going to destroy that formatting)


IN THE IOWA DISTRICT COURT FOR <$project.extra2$> COUNTY- SMALL CLAIMS DIVISION
______________________________________________________________________________
Plaintiff )
<$foreach object project.roles$><$if object.roleType.name == "Plaintiff"$><$object.organization.name$><$object.contact.cachedName$> ) Small Claim
<$object.organization.defaultGeoAddress.street$><$object.contact.defaultGeoAddress.street$> ) ORIGINAL NOTICE
<$object.organization.defaultGeoAddress.city$><$object.contact.defaultGeoAddress.city$>, <$object.organization.defaultGeoAddress.state$><$object.contact.defaultGeoAddress.state$> <$object.organization.defaultGeoAddress.postalCode$><$object.contact.defaultGeoAddress.postalCode$><$endforeach do$> ) (Action for Money Judgment)
) vs. )
) Small Claim No. _____________
Defendant )
<$foreach object project.roles$><$if object.roleType.name == "Defendant"$><$object.organization.name$><$object.contact.cachedName$> ) Date Filed: __________________
<$object.organization.defaultGeoAddress.street$><$object.contact.defaultGeoAddress.street$> )
<$object.organization.defaultGeoAddress.city$><$object.contact.defaultGeoAddress.city$>, <$object.organization.defaultGeoAddress.state$><$object.contact.defaultGeoAddress.state$> <$object.organization.defaultGeoAddress.postalCode$><$object.contact.defaultGeoAddress.postalCode$><$endforeach do$> )
______________________________________________________________________________

George: This was very helpful. I'm wondering if you know of a way to save multiple letters with different names following an inernal merge. That is, say I highlight three contacts who have been linked to a project. When I run an internal merge, I must give the merge a name. That name applies to all three merged letters. Any way to run a merge and name them differently. It would be great to run a single merge, then just name each document generated by that merge and be done with it.

Great stuff!

I think I've learned more from you in one paragraph that what I've managed to squeeze out of the collective MC geist in three months.

A few things in reply and to expand:

1. My main concern when contemplating a shift the internal text editor for drafting legal instruments is outline numbering. I have tried other word processors but keep coming back to Word, despite its flaws, for its ability to run precise, reliable sets of legal numbering. Another feature that appears to be missing in other applications is cross-referencing, which in Apple's Pages, for example, doesn't even exist (I think).

2. The text editor doesn't allow styles either. And what about your logo? and tables? I use a lot of table for formatting. Word also allows to insert an Excel selection as an "Object" which is linked back to the original Excel document and may be fully edited in Word, if changes or updates to the formula or data are required. Admittedly, I haven't played around much with it and do not understand how you developed the field language (but I'm impressed by it and would like to learn).

3. I'm in agreeance about the benefits of automatic linking of merged internal forms. Having to manually link externally merged documents created using DL scripts seems silly, given the lengths the engineers have gone to provide a complete process, i.e. select, rename and save the document to a specified location, to leave out automatic link creation. But doesn't all that information clutter up the database and slow it down? Where do you cut and paste the text to? A note?

4. The merge keys for external applications created in the latest release of DL go a long way, but I don't understand why the same merge fields that will insert contacts based on their roles in the project can't be developed for the external environment. There's probably some complex reason, but I will keep badgering the DL mob. Hopefully they will come up with something, if they can make the time to read my emails.

Anyway, we can bust our butt or go with what's there. I'll look forward to hearing any more thoughts you have.

Cheers,

"But doesn't all that information clutter up the database and slow it down? Where do you cut and paste the text to? A note?"

I don't think you can do a lot of work with the internal editor without deleting that work over time. The database would balloon. It would make sense to print to PDF (i.e. save a copy of the internal document to PDF format and save the PDF to a client folder on the harddrive), then delete the internal docs at the conclusion of the case, if not sooner.

I use a lot of government forms in my practice. I've been able to create merge templates with those forms in WordPerfect. I don't think it's even possible to duplicate that with Word2008 on a Mac. That's the frustrating thing about switching. So much more on the Windows side.

Hi Atticus and George

My preference at this point is continue merging to docs externally, thereby keeping a trail of links to documents residing on a server that may be opened from within DL. That way the DL database is dealing only with data belonging to its objects, not copious amount of general information, e.g. instructions, letter contents, etc.

That said, I'm impressed, George with your ability of generating a law suite with one click. Does that mean your originating motion (commence proceedings) and defence notices, appearances, statement of claim, etc. (they're probably quite different systems we're talking about).

And what of Forms? I can't quite understand their function apart from acting as a tool to collect client data and or take initial instructions whilst, say on the phone. I can't figure out how to generate a visible file, export their contents or get any other use out of them. Can anyone enlighten me on their purpose or a creative use for their deployment in a law practice?

Cheers,

quote:

Originally posted by Tim Jacka:
Great stuff!

I think I've learned more from you in one paragraph that what I've managed to squeeze out of the collective MC geist in three months.

A few things in reply and to expand:

1. My main concern when contemplating a shift the internal text editor for drafting legal instruments is outline numbering. I have tried other word processors but keep coming back to Word, despite its flaws, for its ability to run precise, reliable sets of legal numbering. Another feature that appears to be missing in other applications is cross-referencing, which in Apple's Pages, for example, doesn't even exist (I think).

2. The text editor doesn't allow styles either. And what about your logo? and tables? I use a lot of table for formatting. Word also allows to insert an Excel selection as an "Object" which is linked back to the original Excel document and may be fully edited in Word, if changes or updates to the formula or data are required. Admittedly, I haven't played around much with it and do not understand how you developed the field language (but I'm impressed by it and would like to learn).

Your concerns here are well founded and I'm not sure that I have many answers. There are simple tables in the built-in editor, but I haven't actually found them to be that helpful. Numbering is another issue. I have templates that auto number and it does work, but that's limited to simple 1,2,3,4 numbering. I BELIEVE that there is nested numbering, but don't expect it to be as robust as what you're going to get in Word. That's why I try to always mention the need for improvements to the built-in editor. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like I have a whole lot of weight behind my suggestions so far. Maybe you could help add some voices to the chorus!

quote:

3. I'm in agreeance about the benefits of automatic linking of merged internal forms. Having to manually link externally merged documents created using DL scripts seems silly, given the lengths the engineers have gone to provide a complete process, i.e. select, rename and save the document to a specified location, to leave out automatic link creation. But doesn't all that information clutter up the database and slow it down? Where do you cut and paste the text to? A note?

As far as pasting, I normally create a blank merge template and then just paste there. A little more organized than pasting into a note. As far as Atticus' comment is concerned, you'll note that it's pure speculation. I actually store WAV formatted voicemails in notes and so far I haven't seen any slowness (i.e. files that are a hundred times or more larger than a simple text doc). The underlying technology (OpenBase) is pretty robust from what I understand and I think it's going to take A LOT of text documents to significantly impact performance. I guess that my approach here is that I will cross that bridge when/if I come to it, but I'm certainly not going to let unfounded speculation stop me from trying...

quote:

4. The merge keys for external applications created in the latest release of DL go a long way, but I don't understand why the same merge fields that will insert contacts based on their roles in the project can't be developed for the external environment. There's probably some complex reason, but I will keep badgering the DL mob. Hopefully they will come up with something, if they can make the time to read my emails.

Anyway, we can bust our butt or go with what's there. I'll look forward to hearing any more thoughts you have.

Cheers,

I agree with you about the merge keys for external applications (although I do think that there are probably some legitimate technical limitations from what I've heard). In fact, it was my discovery of the discrepancy between the built-in merge keys and the external merge keys that led me to learn about the abilities of the built-in editor in the first place. In my case, it was just more valuable to forego some of the formatting in exchange for a higher level of automation. Believe me, if there was some way to have DL auto link external documents and use all of the available merge keys, I would definitely re-think my approach. That said, I can certainly see arguments on both sides when it comes to developing the strength of external vs. internal merge documents.

One other thing that I should probably mention is that one key difference, at least as far as I know, between the internal and external merge engine is that the internal engine supports a sort of simple programming language. If you look at the code that I posted, you may notice that it contains IF, ELSE, and FOREACH statements. As I said, it's very simple syntax. But, if you know anything about programming at all, you should realize that just the ability to loop over a section of code and use an IF statement is a VERY powerful thing. In other words, a little programming goes a long way. My point here is that even if ALL of the merge keys were available to external applications, the internal engine would still be inherently more powerful because of the aforementioned ability.

Oh, and as to your earlier question about naming different merge documents. I don't have an answer. If there are two things that confound me about Daylite, they are these: 1. Why is it that you can link EVERY OTHER object in DL to more than one other object (e.g. one contact to two projects, two contacts to one organization) but you can't link a form to more than one object; and 2. Why can't you re-name letters built with the built-in editor after they are created. Those two just don't make any sense to me. Don't get me wrong, I think that MarketCircle is one of the best development houses around, but sometimes it seems like they will let some basic inconsistencies linger for a LONG time...

In any case, I enjoy hearing your thoughts on this issue. Personally, I think that document creation/handling is kind of the next frontier, so to speak, for DL, especially when it comes to law offices. I know that it irks me on a daily basis that I have to setup a project in DL AND a filing structure on my server for every case. It just seems to me that document filing is a natural extension of this already robust system.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: George Qualley,

quote:

Originally posted by Tim Jacka:
Hi Atticus and George

My preference at this point is continue merging to docs externally, thereby keeping a trail of links to documents residing on a server that may be opened from within DL. That way the DL database is dealing only with data belonging to its objects, not copious amount of general information, e.g. instructions, letter contents, etc.

I certainly understand your personal preference in this regard.

quote:

That said, I'm impressed, George with your ability of generating a law suite with one click. Does that mean your originating motion (commence proceedings) and defence notices, appearances, statement of claim, etc. (they're probably quite different systems we're talking about).

Tim, that's exactly what I mean.

quote:

And what of Forms? I can't quite understand their function apart from acting as a tool to collect client data and or take initial instructions whilst, say on the phone. I can't figure out how to generate a visible file, export their contents or get any other use out of them. Can anyone enlighten me on their purpose or a creative use for their deployment in a law practice?

Cheers,

Ah yes, Forms are kind of the missing key to this whole equation. I use them extensively. In fact, I actually had a form and a corresponding merge template that would generate an entire petition for a divorce case. I don't do family law, but when I was in school working in legal clinic, I did it just for the exercise. I could literally go through a form inputting things like number of children, date of marriage, place of birth, etc., and have the merge engine insert and/or take action based on the info in the form. For example, let's say I have a check box in a form that indicates that the couple had children. Based on that, I can automatically insert the language necessary for a divorce with children. In short, forms are VERY powerful if used correctly, but as is the case with other features, they're not going to be of use to you with the external merge engine...

A note: I don't want to come off sounding like I'm trying to convince you to switch to the internal editor. More than anything, I just want to point out the reasons why I don't use it. As I said, I certainly understand that your own personal needs may well weigh in favor of the external merge engine. It just so happens that mine don't most of the time.

quote:

And what of Forms? I can't quite understand their function apart from acting as a tool to collect client data and or take initial instructions whilst, say on the phone. I can't figure out how to generate a visible file, export their contents or get any other use out of them. Can anyone enlighten me on their purpose or a creative use for their deployment in a law practice?

Tim: While I don't yet use DL in my practice, I see forms as a way of collecting info related to a particular practice area. So you'd have a form for estates, a form for personal injury, a form for wills, and so forth. The data in these forms can be used in merging with the built-in editor. They can also be used in reports though the reporting engine is very difficult to understand. Because extra fields are limited both in kind and quantity, having custom forms available is very nice. The only significant limitation of which I'm aware is that some kinds of form fields don't get picked up when creating smart lists. This is a known bug. Hopefully, MC will squash it.

George is absolutely correct that I am speculating when I say that keeping documents in the database will, over time, slow it down. I have no real world experience with DL. I am encouraged to hear that George hasn't noticed any significant impact on database performance. Having 18000 document records in my Timematters database HAS slowed it down significantly (and these are document records, not the actual docs themselves), but that may be related to network issues as well as the proprietary form of the database. It's one of the reasons I want to switch.

Finally, I do hope DL will add the ability to rename docs in a future release. This just doesn't make any sense. And the addition of formatting features like you suggested would be a great boon to the product.

I am very encouraged by George's experience. It's great to be able to get project info, custom form info, and linked contact info into a single merge letter. That opens up many possibilities I hadn't considered. If DL addresses the renaming and formatting annoyances, and then document how to get all this info into an internal merge letter, more attorneys might make the switch.

Tim & Atticus,

I think this discussion has, at the very least, the potential to be very productive. MarketCircle has clearly shown the willingness to add law practice-specific features in DL (e.g. reverse activity sets, Law database template) which is great. However, I have to imagine that it's tough for them to really cater to our market as it is somewhat specialized. Perhaps discussions like this will give them some concrete ideas as to features that are valuable to our profession.

Atticus, a question for you. Are you of Tim's same mind that the external merging is the way to go? In other words, is Word (or whatever word processing program you use) valuable enough to you that you are essentially tied to it no matter what?

Like I said, personally I've chosen to go with the internal merge engine only because of it's feature set. By no means do I think that it's perfect. In fact, like I said, I still do all of my complex documents in Pages. What I believe is that MarketCircle is kind of at a fork in the road here, so to speak. In order to make this function really useful for lawyers, they either need to expand the formatting/text processing capabilities of the internal editor, or support the same type of merging for external documents that they do for internal documents. To this end, one of the things that somewhat perplexes me is that they've got this great report engine (which, as you mentioned can be tough to understand, although it is VERY powerful once you do understand it) but they've only chosen to extend it to the reporting function for some reason. Maybe there's some technical hurdle that lead to this type of implementation, but I would be AWFULLY happy if I had the same kind of power in the merge engine as is present in the report engine.

Anyways, I'm eager to hear your thoughts on this issue. On a related note, I've been thinking of suggesting the following feature: I would like to have an option to have a folder structure automatically created on my server for a project. Right now I have to create a project, create a folder in the Finder, and link the folder to the project in DL. I think it would be very nice if I could either a) have a folder automatically created and linked to every project (which could be disabled in a preference, of course); or b) have some sort of button which would allow me to trigger this type of action. It's just a little thing that would certainly make my life just a little easier (and I imagine others'). What do you guys think?

quote:

Atticus, a question for you. Are you of Tim's same mind that the external merging is the way to go? In other words, is Word (or whatever word processing program you use) valuable enough to you that you are essentially tied to it no matter what?

I guess in the best of all possible worlds, or at least something close to the best of all possible worlds, Corel would have WordPerfect for Mac with all the Windows features intact. I have about 100 merge templates in WP and use both merges and macros in WP to generate lots of docs of all types--letters, pleadings and briefs. It works beautifully. Data into Timematters; data out to Wordperfect without any intermediate steps. No need to spend hudnreds of dollars to buy a Connector and a copy of Filemaker to handle it. So having an external WP is my first choice.

Of course, Corel isn't going to do that so that leaves Word or Pages. Word 2008 dropped VBA support and I haven't toyed with its merge function. I've read that merging takes forever with Word 2008 but I haven't really tested it yet. I like Pages quite a bit but I understand it saves docs in these OSX packages so it's a bit quirky. I know you can't merge to it now unless you script it, and that's just not an option for me.

So there really isn't anything comparable to Wordperfect in terms of merging. That leaves the built-in editor which does more than I thought it could. That snippet of code you shared really helped! The built-in editor will do maybe 80% of what I need it to do.

I'll still miss the ability to merge to official government forms. I do that now in WP quite easily because the forms are available in WP format and because it's easy to fix the merge keys in an absolute position on the page. I think I can emulate this with Word 2008 by creating a watermark of the government form, then creating text boxes (which can be positioned anywhere on the page), then putting the merge keys in the text box. But, again, I don't know how fast this will work, not having tested it either on my MBPro or over a network. I hope to do that shortly.

Also, not having DL configured on a network is a disadvantage b/c I can't tell if merging with the built-in editor is as blindingly fast as it appears to be on my MBPro. If it works that quickly on a network, I'll be very happy.

Having said all that, my preference would be for MC and Apple to work on Pages integration. I think Pages, like DL, has lots of promise. I've never liked Word very much. But I'm hardly objective about this.

As I said in my last post, I'm encouraged by your experience with the built-in editor but I'll miss the header/footer, pagination, etc. I'd understand it if MC focused on the editor since it seems that merges with external WPs like Word and Pages are technically more difficult. But again, as between Pages and Word, I much prefer Pages.

quote:

I would like to have an option to have a folder structure automatically created on my server for a project.

I did a screencast on doc management in DL over at www.mac-lawyer.com. I do (well, make that "would do") exactly what you described: create a project, create a folder and link it. I guess the problem with the automated solution is that it would still require you to specify the folder although I suppose you could take care of that in preferences. Timematters let's you choose a naming convention for just this purpose. I don't mind the current configuaration since it's pretty quick as it is. But if it eliminated a few steps and wasn't difficult to program, I'd like your suggestion.

The last thing I'll say in terms of wish lists is for MC to bring back the ability to link an Opportunity to a Project since I'd use the Opp record to track documents. I've got a running list of "suggestions" floating around in my brain that I need to get on paper and over to MC. This is high on my list (together with the ability to rename a doc created by the built-in editor).

So are you using DL on a network? Is it fairly snappy?