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Frequently Asked Questions
 | What is HotDocs?
 | HotDocs is the world's leading
"automated document assembly software," winning
awards year after year as an excellent way to increase office
productivity by automating the forms you typically use and
produce documents more quickly and more efficiently.
HotDocs is a LexisNexis product. |
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| What is document assembly?
| Document assembly means, not surprisingly,
taking the documents you already have and automating them so
they are produced far more quickly and with an absolute
minimum of errors. "Merges" and
"macros" were two early forms of speedier document
assembly, familiar to users of Word and WordPerfect. |
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| What type of document is HotDocs good for
automating?
| Any document where there is a considerable
amount of boilerplate language; where the input is repetitive
but time-consuming; where you'd like to standardize the output
but find it's inconsistent despite your best efforts,
etc. You'd be surprised how many documents in your
practice will take well to being automated. Forms
libraries are particularly suitable. |
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| Would HotDocs be suited to the type of law I
or my firm practices?
| HotDocs is suitable for both litigation work
and transactional work. |
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Will using HotDocs save
me time and/or money?
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HotDocs hugely reduces
the time spent preparing repetitive forms and drops the error
rate considerably by eliminating the word processing errors
that can come back in with subsequent drafts of a
document. With the considerable extra time that HotDocs
saves, you can afford to take on more work, spend more time
relaxing, or cut back on the amount of staff you need to stay
in business. |
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How do I learn HotDocs?
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If you want to learn HotDocs, you have
several choices:
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Download the 30-day trial version of the
current software from the HotDocs website; and combine
this with the ABA book, "HotDocs in One Hour for
Lawyers." You can self-teach HotDocs to a
certain level, but it may turn out that you're mainly
familiarizing yourself with how HotDocs works.
There's no substitute for working on documents yourself;
and with a trained expert to ask questions of when you
find yourself in a bind with something you can't answer. |
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Take a training course. LexisNexis,
the parent company, offers two levels of training:
"fundamentals" and "advanced" at
locations across the country. The fundamentals
course is shorter, cheaper, and taught more frequently;
the advanced course is longer, more expensive, and taught
infrequently. When you're done with these courses,
you should be ready to take on whatever projects you have
in mind. The downside is, you may have to wait for
training. Customized training is also available,
both from HotDocs and from individual certified
consultants, like us. |
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Have someone teach you who already knows
it. Be aware, though, that learning HotDocs take a
while. Using HotDocs as an end-user on forms someone
has written specifically for you is quite simple
(depending on how well the developer wrote your forms!);
learning it yourself can be time-consuming and difficult
to integrate with the demands of a busy practice. |
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| How can I convert the forms library I already
have to HotDocs?
| The two most obvious choices are: find a
HotDocs consultant to convert your library for you; or learn
HotDocs and do it as a do-it-yourself project. |
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| Is HotDocs well-respected in the industry?
| HotDocs, year after year, wins major industry
awards as great productivity software. It was originally
written by lawyers for lawyers, and it is often described as
software that "thinks like a lawyer" so it is
particularly suited to the legal industry. |
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| Does HotDocs work with other software?
| For the most part, yes; and because HotDocs
is a LexisNexis product, we're relying on the parent company
to build bridges with other popular law office software.
Currently, HotDocs integrates with many of the popular law
office software packages. |
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| When should I consider turning to HotDocs?
| Here are some ideas:
| When your practice gets so busy that the
only way you can get the work out is to increase your
level of automation; |
| When you've reached critical mass with
how difficult and time-consuming it's become to find the
latest and preferred version of whatever form you're
searching for on your office network; |
| When business is slow and you realize
it's time to upgrade the way you do business, now or
never, and you actually have time for a forms project on
your hands; |
| When you're dissatisfied with how your
forms have been working in Word or WordPerfect; |
| When you love how your merge forms used
to work in WordPerfect, but you haven't been able to share
your output with colleagues who use Word. |
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| Where do I purchase HotDocs?
| LexisNexis sells HotDocs software directly,
as do a number of certified resellers, including us.
HotDocs is not available in stores. |
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| How much time will I really be saving?
| We think you will be pleasantly SHOCKED by
the amount of time using HotDocs will save you on generating
documents. It's fair to say that document packages that
took hours to complete can now take minutes; and documents
that took minutes could now be produced in seconds. You
may find yourself rubbing your hands with glee and doing an
impromptu jig when you realize how much you're actually
saving, in terms of time, money, and frustration with
inconsistent work product. |
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| Does HotDocs work with Word or Word Perfect?
| Conveniently enough, HotDocs works well with
Word, Word Perfect, or AmiPro. HotDocs works
independently of the word processing software you use, and
produces its "output" or final product in the word
processing software of your choice. |
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| Can HotDocs handle my graphical forms, like
PDFs?
| Yes! HotDocs Version 6, just released,
and any subsequent versions, has an add-on available called
"PDF Advantage." This software is particularly
suited to handling graphical forms, such as PDFs, including
tax forms, etc. |
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| I've got an earlier version of HotDocs.
How do I know if I should upgrade to the recent version?
| The answer obviously depends on your current
needs. If you work with graphical forms, such as PDF
documents, the ability to choose "PDF Advantage"
with HotDocs 6 will be a real asset to your work. There
is some concern that earlier versions of HotDocs will not be
supported once version 6 and following establish themselves in
the workplace, so this is an issue as well. |
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Please feel free to contact
Efficient Document Solutions at:
Efficient Law
Office Consulting
Tel.: (800) 262-0428
Email us
"We
deliver what technology promises"
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