Law and Automation has an option for your team to have immediate access to document production. That is, there is no delay in your access to creating and downloading documentation. Further, you can update and amend the documents and regenerate as you need. The platform is available to you and your team 24/7 which can significantly assist with your management of workflows. Additionally, if you have not already automated your document suite, access to this membership will allow you to explore automating your own templates. For migration or commencement of new automations, the scope and agreed pricing for View to assist in this regard can be included in your ongoing membership, or customised as short term or once off projects.

In contrast, with the EEASSY and Docs only solutions, you need to provide instructions to View to prepare documents on a matter by matter basis. Therefore, there is an inherent delay in your receipt of documents (which are only available during business hours). Further, if there are minor changes or amendments to your requests you need to email View with your change of instructions.

Please send an email to [email protected] and the team will send you additional information and test access. We also have videos on specific areas, however usually we find it is best to use the system first.  It is an intelligent interview based platform and the automation allows 1000s of scenarios to be covered.

Due to the way in which the ecosystem is built we no-longer have ‘precedents’ in the traditionally understood sense.

That is, the platform is fully integrated and the underlying technical aspects of the documentation can only be accessed via the automation interface.

A key part of the reason for not having static precedents is the unacceptable risk levels of this style of approach on many levels, including the exponential increase in human error occurring – and the fact that the precedents are generally outdated within a few months of being issued. Further, due to the number of areas of the law that need to be considered (for example, at a minimum, corporations law, trust law, tax, stamp duty and holistic estate planning), and the risk and insurance issues we only advise based on a specific factual matrix.

Indeed, from a value perspective, even at a price point of free, our experience is that the creating and offering of static precedents is arguably disingenuous.

This said, we View can provide access to additional precedents not yet fully automated each time access is needed as part of your firm’s membership. 

Requests are needed for each use as all View precedents are updated regularly, and thus it would be irresponsible for View to allow your firm to rely on a precedent previously provided.

View does however, regularly assist other firms on a white labelled basis in this area and if that would be of interest, please let us know and we can provide a summary of the background material we would need to review.

Our initial review of the material is at no cost or obligation, and will ensure you are provided with confirmation of whether we can add value and, if we believe we can, a suggested scope of work and fixed pricing.

All information provided is only retained with your authority and is otherwise treated in strict confidence.

Practically, yes this is possible.

However it is strongly recommended this approach is not adopted, for a number of reasons including:

a. Due to the way in which the ecosystem is built we no-longer have ‘precedents’ in the traditionally understood sense.  Instead, each and every document is generated based on the answers entered into the intelligent and dynamic interviews.  Simply because you have a document issued by Law + Automation for a particular situation does not mean it will be suitable for a similar situation; indeed often it will not be.

b. We have a team of specialists constantly monitoring all aspects of the platform – and updating the documents produced.  Rarely a week would pass without any change.  Sometimes changes are minor.  Sometimes changes are significant. Unless your firm can devote resources to constantly monitor and reverse engineer what changes have occurred and how they may impact your precedents, any clauses copied from a View document runs the risk of being out of date without your team knowing.

c. Context matters – copying isolated clauses from integrated documentation suites into other documents is a piecemeal approach that by definition is extremely high risk.

d. Technology, systems and processes matter – manually amending static precedents is exceptionally high risk given the inability to appropriately leverage technology, systems and processes.  Relying on humans, static documents and checklists is suboptimal on every criteria.

e. Leverage matters – given the number of firms now accessing Law + Automation regularly (in addition to View’s national footprint), we are able to tap into the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ in relation to lessons learnt from a material range of sources including court decisions, cases settled out of court, financier requirements, seminars, technical papers and specialist thought leaders.  All this wisdom is triaged, analysed and where it adds value, seamlessly weaved across the entire suite of automated solutions.  Although not mandatory, if you identify any aspects of the documentation that could be improved please share your advice.  Improvements and changes to the platform are often as a result of advice from member firms – and we appreciate you providing this to us.

f. Ultimately View’s approach is based on lessons learnt by offering a model where static precedents were provided with regular updates issued (either via notifications or in ‘education catch ups’).  While View was able to keep across all changes, most firms very quickly discovered that material confusion would arise as to the currency of their static precedents.  Furthermore, member firms were diverting disproportionate resources into maintaining the currency of static precedents and ensuring required changes were made correctly and consistently across all required documentation.

Many View flyers can be branded however you chose.  These can be accessed here and put the word ‘’Flyer’’ in the search bar.

The T1, T2 etc are essentially volume metrics. Each creates access to all documents required for a personal estate plan (ie wills, TT, EPAs in every state and all related ancillary documents, eg memo of directions).  There are a significant number of related products we can build into your access once your business has a sense of what other solutions you would like to offer to your customer base.

While View Legal is a ‘’timeless’’ firm, we understand that many firms choose to work on a time billing basis and are concerned that seamless automation may undermine their ability to generate billable time. The main concern is around moving to an automated platform will mean that less time will be spent on ‘’cutting and pasting’’ and customising documents that is billable time. However, what firms have found is that when leveraging Law & Automation they have more time to speak with, and understand their customers, because they have freed up the time usually spent in document production. A better relationship is developed and more meaningful work is done with the customer as the team are no longer caught up in the administration and work that may not in fact be properly chargeable in any event.

Consider some of the ways that your business has drafted documents in the past. Proof reading, version control and endless tracking. As well as the old chestnut of “copy and paste” from another customer’s document. Then just when you think that the document is in final, the formatting falls to pieces.

Heritage approaches are tedious and boring and highly risky for your business and your customers. Further, the time that your business has spent in chasing its tail, is time not spent providing value to your customers by engaging with them. Automating your documents takes these issues away from your business and ensures that you can focus on being a trusted adviser for your customers. Think about what that means for future proofing your customer relationships, and in turn your business legacy.

In other words, if you are caught up in administration, precedent development and re-drafting, and don’t have time to talk with your customers, then who is? Most likely it is one (or more) of your competitors,

Are you willing to allow your future business revenue go to a competitor because you and your team were ‘too busy’ manually maintaining and creating documents? Perhaps you are? If not then, you need Law & Automation now.

Once membership terms have been agreed, you have immediate access to agreed Law & Automation documents.

The View Legal team has over 100 years of combined experience exclusively in the Tax, Trusts, Estate Planning and Business Succession space. This means that the team’s documents have been road tested 1000s of times and been consistently reviewed by industry peers over that time to ensure robustness of the documents.

View is passionate and disciplined about constant reviews and updates to all precedents based on peer, adviser and end customer feedback, as well as reflecting changes in the law. No longer do you and your team need to spend time keeping these documents up to date, knowing that the team at View is doing this for you. You and your team can focus on building your customer relationships.

Think how much time you and your team currently spend drafting, redrafting and creating documentation. Ensuring that it is up to date for current laws, reading all relevant case law, Tax Determinations, articles released by your insurer and your Law Society to name a few (and other “non-chargeable” issues). Consider the risk that you bring to your business and your customers if you are not doing this. There is only so much time available to action all the demands of a business. If you are not spending time with your customers, as you are “too busy” ensuring that your documents are correct, then they are unlikely to remain your customers.

Automation of documentation and access to consistently tried and tested precedents means that you can free up the time that you otherwise spent labouring over precedent updates and changes in the law. Instead use that time to speak with your customers and build a long term relationship with them.

A licence gives you access to prepare, review and edit documents in Hotdocs Advance directly and immediately.

With practice areas where you are highly specialised and know and trust your precedents, automation can simultaneously significantly increase your productivity while also materially reducing risk within your firm.  The View turnkey solution is built by specialist lawyers, for specialist lawyers.  It respects the role played by software; without making you a slave to the coders.

Even if you have looked at automation within the last 12 months, it may be worthwhile you considering View’s platform.  Much of the ‘heavy lifting’ that is otherwise required of you has already been done by View.  This can make the value equation compelling even with relatively small volumes, even if previously the value proposition may have seemed marginal to you.

The pricing to access Law & Automation is developed collaboratively with you, based on your estimated use, and then is revisited quarterly to determine if the appropriate tier has been chosen.

Yes of course! 

If there is a package or individual document you wish to automate, please email us at [email protected]. The scope and agreed pricing for View to assist with automations can be included in your ongoing membership, or customised as short term or once off projects.

No. Only the View administrator of Hotdocs Advance will have access to your workgroup, in order to properly oversee the running of the application. In no circumstances will View lawyers use or access your documents, nor allow any other firm to. See the Terms and Conditions here.

The original owner (i.e. your firm) retains copyright in any precedents that you automate in Hotdocs Advance.

This can be developed on a template by template basis. The scope and agreed pricing for View to assist in this regard can be included in your ongoing membership, or customised as short term or once off projects.

This can be developed on a template by template basis. The scope and agreed pricing for View to assist in this regard can be included in your ongoing membership, or customised as short term or once off projects.

This is on the development list, however at this stage it is not possible.

Each template is different and depends on the level of complexity and the clarity of instructions provided.  

The scope and agreed pricing for View to assist in this regard can be included in your ongoing membership, or customised as short term or once off projects.

A template is the underlying precedent document containing boilerplate text combined with the coding that underpins the automation.  The coding allows the template to be transformed from a static Word document into  what is often referred to as ‘document automation’.

Document automation refers to an application that gathers data, assembles that data into an underlying Word template, in order to then generate an infinite number of like, yet individualised, documents.  It enables lawyers to perfect a template, and in turn, radically reduce the ‘human error’ factor that ‘hands on keyboards’ (whether by way of typing or copying and pasting) creates when trying to use an existing ‘example’ document to produce a new one.

An ‘interview’ is what we refer to as the data gathering questionnaire.  This is the series of ‘dynamic’ questions (meaning the answer to each question tailors subsequent questions) that ultimately determines how the underlying template is produced for the specific client scenario.

If you would like to have your own template packages added to Hotdocs Advance, this is the first step of the process.

Document mapping involves preparing all of the possible outcomes in the document with a series of IF and ELSE statements. (These words are ‘Developer Jargon’ – IF you don’t know about these concepts then you will need assistance, ELSE your documents will not operate as planned …) The developer uses the statements provided to convert the intended legal drafting outcomes into technical coding to facilitate the automation.  The process also requires preparing a series of questions (and possible answers, if not free text) that a user would see onscreen in the ‘interview’, to enable the ultimate production of the legal document.

At a very high level ‘mapping’ refers to the totality of possible information that may be required in order to produce a particular legal document. 

A comprehensive mapping process ensures that all of the different scenarios that the document needs to be automated for have been considered.

We have found that specialist assistance is needed with respect to the mapping to ensure that all items are covered off as needed. We can assist with facilitating this process. This can include direct referrals to trusted specialist and (where appropriate) View providing a scope and agreed pricing for View to assist in this regard, which can be included in your ongoing membership, or customised as short term or once off projects.

The testing of the coding and mapping is a critical part of any document automation process. View can assist with testing any documents you have arranged to be automated. The scope and agreed pricing for View to assist in this regard can be included in your ongoing membership, or customised as short term or once off projects.

Yes, View can assist with testing any documents you have arranged to be automated.  You will however need to review the end results to ensure that the documents are as intended.  Again, the scope and agreed pricing for View to assist in this regard can be included in your ongoing membership, or customised as short term or once off projects.

Yes, View can assist with mapping any documents you would like to be automated.  Again, the scope and agreed pricing for View to assist in this regard can be included in your ongoing membership, or customised as short term or once off projects.

For any precedents you choose to automate, a new ‘Testing’ workspace will be set up for your firm exclusively within Hotdocs Advance, in order to test and verify documents.  Depending on View’s involvement, we can send regular email correspondence on the status of development.

At this point in time, we are not aware of any bugs. However, that is not to say things are ‘bug free’. Please refer to the Terms and Conditions here about this aspect of the platform. 

Over the last two decades, the team members of View Legal have tried and tested many Document Automation systems – including building from scratch.  Our learnings have been that Hotdocs Advance is a complete template producing, data gathering, and document assembly platform.  It can implement highly complex automations that other platforms View has used in the past could not. In other words, View has borne significant  pain so that you have all the gain.  Our team has significant specialisation in all aspects of the document automation process which will help ensure that conversion of your templates is a streamlined and value adding process.

Yes, this is possible, although there are a few intricacies around the process for this that View can walk you through, to maintain customer privacy.  Having said that, before sending a customer link, we recommend you review the interview questions for the particular package, to ensure it is appropriate for an end customer.  The interviews (other than estate planning) have been primarily designed with other lawyers in mind and therefore may not make sense to an end customer.  Of course, if there any customisations to the interviews that you would like, please let us know.