In my previous post, I mentioned the new direction in which I would be taking this blog. Instead of going on about the individual components of modern elawyering applications, I have decided to embark upon a major project in which I will build an elawyering application from scratch. I'll be documenting this from start to finish, all the way through to deployment on the web. Hopefully, you will stick around and provide input and ask questions along the way. If you have not done so already, please subscribe to my rss feeds so that you know when a new entry is posted.

What is ABIEE™?

ABIEE™ is an acronym for "Alliance of Bankruptcy Information and Expert Exchange". As you can see, ABIEE™ will be an elawyering application focused on bankruptcy practice. In this first entry, I will discuss what my vision for ABIEE™ is and what ABIEE™ will be able to do. 

The Intended Audience

The intended audience for this series of entries can be made up of four distinct disciplines. It may be that you act as two or more of these disciplines. Specifically, I will focus on lawyers/bankruptcy petition preparers; application/web designers; application/web developers; and SEO technicians/web marketers. These ent ries are meant to be a reference for lawyers to use when discussing their own elawyering application with these additional parties.

My Vision for ABIEE™

When I thought of the idea for ABIEE™, I wanted a place for consumers and bankruptcy professionals to meet and connect. The "A" in the name ABIEE™ stands for "Alliance". Additionally, the "E' at the end stands for "Exchange". Both of these terms symbolize connecting at a central location. The "I" stands for "Information". It is my goal that participating bankruptcy professionals will contribute in some way to the building and maintenance of a robust bankruptcy information repository. All these elements combine to make a central location for consumers to connect with and facilitate the exchange of information with bankruptcy experts who can ultimately help them with their cases.

From the bankruptcy professionals standpoint, ABIEE™ will be a place to acquire new clients as well as manage just about every aspect of the bankruptcy case for that client. In a way, ABIEE™ will have a built in case management system which will intelligently integrate with each acquired client. I know this is a lot for one application to achieve, which is why I will break the portions down into manageable chunks. 

Next, let's take a look at a preliminary list of what ABIEE™ will do for each type of user (the bankruptcy professional and the consumer/client).

What will ABIEE™ do for the client/consumer?

The following is a preliminary list of features that will be available for clients/consumers. This list is subject to change over the course of development.

1. Obtain relevant bankruptcy information from a vast repository of experts
2. Organize all documents related to bankruptcy in an organizational system that allows the client to maintain everything in one place before they actually file (This will be the focus of the service from the client side).
3. Maintain a checklist
4. Create a library of resources
5. Ability to search and view information, bio, etc of bankruptcy professional publicly listed in the ABIEE™ directory. 
6. Ability to message prospective bankruptcy professionals through ABIEE's™ messaging system.
7. Ability to select a bankruptcy professional to complete their documents.
8. Ability to submit a case review/means test to selected bankruptcy professional
9. Ability to receive analysis and results of means test from bankruptcy professional
10. Ability to convert from chapter 7 to 13 on bankruptcy professional's prompting.
11. Ability to submit payment to bankruptcy professional.
12. Ability to retrieve completed documents from selected bankruptcy professional.
13. Ability to maintain a calendar of important case events.

I'll start with the customary "I haven't posted for a while" before I get started. It's not that I haven't had anything to write about, rather I have a lot to write about and wanted to discover the most comprehensive, yet clear method of delivering the information. In my next post today I will talk about the new direction of this blog. For now, I'll quickly discuss the topic of this post.

My Former View on Automated Document Assembly

As you may or may not know, I have indicated my disliking of client-facing automated document solutions. I based this on the fact that the elawyering applications of the future will need to focus on personal service rather than the automated technology. However, as George Bush would say, "I do believe human beings and fish can co-exist." Actually, I now believe that automated document technology and personal customized elawyering applications can co-exist. My reasons for changing my stance are not too important, however I will credit Richard Granat and Richard Susskind for their take on the usefulness and cost-benefits of automated document approaches.

Two forms of Automated Document Assembly

In my view, there are two basic forms of automated document assembly. Both have been around for a while, and yet both are new to the realm of elawyering. The first is very common and involves law practice productivity software. Traditionally, law practice productivity software has run outside of the internet on a lawyer's local computer or network. The software is usually connected to a simple database driven user interface used to insert client information. Once the client information is entered, the documents are generated from that information. The second type of automated document assembly involves client-facing document generation software. These types of software packages have typically been developed for simple procedures such as incorporations, wills, LLCs, etc. Both of these types of products have been around for a while, and have not necessarily expanded the availability of affordable, quality, legal services.

The Future of Automated Document Assembly

The challenge today is to take these basic automated document assembly principles and apply them to the new interconnected world of the internet (the cloud). Of course the internet is not new, but it is very young. The legal field is very mature, so the combination of the two is a difficult match. I understand the necessity of maintaining a professional appeal and retaining a conservative approach to delivering legal services. The two types of automated document assembly approaches both have their use in elawyering applications. The first is similar to its legacy counterpart: to provide a means for an attorney to take a client's information and automatically generate accurate legal documents. The main difference between the contemporary and legacy approaches is the method of collecting the client's information. The contemporary method will employ a sophisticated client-facing user interface, complete with highly intelligent questionnaires, and other built in features.

The second legacy approach to automated document assembly can compliment the first approach or be a stand-alone approach. Actually, certain aspects of the second contemporary approach to automated document assembly can compliment the first contemporary approach. For example, a back-end automated document assembly application will utilize the information contained from a front end rich user interface to automatically assemble the documents. If the second contemporary approach was used a a stand-alone solution, it would incorporate the otherwise attorney-facing portion of the automated document assembly process. For example, a cloud-based wills and trust application would utilize a rich user interface to collect information as well as complete the necessary documents.

Hopefully this (kind of) explained my changed view regarding automated document assembly in elawyering applications.

There is a growing trend among many applications in many different genres to utilize the power of embedded media. Embedded media can be either sound or video that is integrated into the html of your web application. There is a significant difference between embedded media and external media. For instance, a Youtube video can be embedded in a web page using Flash. Flash uses a type of progressive download or streaming technology to instantly playback the video file. The streaming/progressive download technology can also be applied to sound files.

Embedded Media v. External Media

You can easily contrast the difference in the user experience between an embedded media file and one that requires a separate application to playback. While it is easy to link to a rich media file via a standard hyperlink in html as follows: <a href="http://somesite/somevideofile.wmv" target="blank">Click here to watch a video</a>, the result will not be to your liking. The problem is that this file will take a significant amount of time to download and playback.

The Beauty of Embedded Media

Embedded media is the answer to slow loading rich video files. A great way to get started with embedded media is to create a Youtube account and upload a high definition video. Youtube supports HD video so you can deliver a rich and stunning video experience to your clients without the problems of increased bandwith usage or storage issues. Consider a video below that I currently have embedded on my freelance page at www.mattpitts.lendahandlegal.com .

This video was recorded with an HD digital video camera. Some quality was lost when Youtube compressed the video, but it looks good for the most part. Hopefully this will encourage you to start to use embedded media in your site today.

For the last couple of days I've been thinking about ways to implement an effective personalization schema for an e-lawyering application. I do believe that personalization and customization are two of the most important ingredients to any e-lawyering application mix. During my brainstorming sessions, I concluded that it would be necessary to include these personalization points strategically throughout the e-lawyering application.

What is a personalization point?

A personalization point is a strategically placed action to ensure the client/potential client that they are in fact dealing with a living and breathing professional at the other end of the application. For example, a personalization point might be placed at the end of an automated case review process.

Personalization point basics 

At a minimum, the personalization point should include a message from the individual performing the bulk of the legal work for the client. The best way to think about a personalization point is to think about face to face encounters. When you conduct a face to face case review, you'll usually end with a message of assurance, strategy, additional information, etc. Your goal in an e-lawyering application is to artfully integrate this behavior into the overall process.

How many personalization points?

My approach to personalization points in e-lawyering applications is to include them directly before or after major required actions. The example I discussed earlier involved a personalization point after the case review process. Personalization points can also be intertwined with customization points. An example of a customization/personalization hybrid could be based on return visits to the application. For example, you could use some means to record the visitors actions on the first trip to your application. When that visitor returns, you could detect whether they had been to the application previously and subsequently display a custom personalized message.