WordPerfect 97 Legal Edition

WordPerfect — once at the pinnacle of legal word processing, then kicked down the hill by Bill Gates — is poised for a comeback. At the October 17 meeting of the Sacramento Lawyer Computer Users' Group (SLUG), Tom Vair, product marketing specialist with Corel, showed WordPerfect's new Legal Edition and explained how Corel is fighting to push WordPerfect back to the top.

In the 1980s you saw WordPerfect's blue screen on computers everywhere. The company's toll-free customer support was legendary. Cottage industries grew up around it. StrictlyLegal, a product of Sacramento's Deputy AG Bob Cross, laid out your WP 4.2 and 5 pleadings. HotDocs did automated document assembly. CiteRite checked your legal citations for correct form. Screen Extender let you see an entire page without scrolling. Extend-A-File added document management. These made WordPerfect indispensable to lawyers.

When WordPerfect Corp. sold to Novell in the early 1990's, Windows 3.1 was gaining popularity and WP 5 and 6 had Windows adaptations. WordPerfect 6.1 had scalable fonts, a graphical edit screen, and multiple documents open at once.

But adapting to the new environment had its costs. WPDOS macros didn't convert to WPWIN; Windows eliminated the need for Screen Extender; and many other add-on makers scrambled to make their programs Windows-based. Many lawyers, happy with what they had and wary of the arguments for change, elected to stay with "true blue" WPDOS while Microsoft Word and Windows 95 took new sales away from WordPerfect.

Many predicted WordPerfect's demise when it sold to Corel. If Novell couldn't outfight Microsoft, how could Corel? Corel's answer in 1996 was WordPerfect Suite 7, a Windows 95 word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation graphics and PIM to replace WordPerfect 6.1 and compete in the features war with Microsoft Office. WordPerfect Suite 8 soon followed.

Corel is not ignoring its loyal law office users. Suite 7, Legal Edition, has Windows versions of the add-on programs. For the many lawyers who refused to switch from Windows 3.1 to 95, Suite 7 Legal runs under both flavors of Windows. (A solely Windows 95 legal edition, based on Suite 8, is due early in 1998.)

HotDocs 4.1, a document assembly program that has been a law office standard for many years, comes in Suite 7 Legal. It lets users generate a template from an example document, and assemble customized documents from the template. These templates can include many functions, even calculations.

CompareRite 5.5 also debuts with Suite 7 Legal. WordPerfect, of course, has long had a document comparison feature. The built-in had its quirks--like exaggerating single-character differences between documents. CompareRite pinpoints changes down to a single character; the user then can view the additions and deletions between versions side-by-side.

FullAuthority 5.5 creates Tables of Authorities, alphabetized within categories such as cases and statutes. FullAuthority also corrects minor underlining, punctuation, and abbreviation errors in citations.

Amicus Attorney 1.7 is a case manager, calendar, tickler, time entry program, contact manager, telephone manager and more--all integrated with WordPerfect. When you call someone in a case, Amicus Attorney finds the name, dials the number, gives you a notepad for notes of your conversation, generates a time entry for the phone call for your billing program (e.g. TimeSlips or PCLaw), starts your confirming letter in WordPerfect, makes a time entry for that, and tickles you to follow up with another call in a few days. While events can automatically generate other events or reminders, the program is less powerful in this respect than Abacus. If Corel improves this feature, the combination of calendar case management and time and billing integration may capture the legal docketing market.

WordPerfect itself has new features. Users now can store related documents as a group of documents under a single name--like a motion, memorandum in support, affidavits in support and a proposed order. WordPerfect now provides multiple clipboards that allow you to save text (plus formatting codes and graphic images) for later use. You can now create professional-looking electronic stationery, pleading papers and forms. There is a new QuickCharacters list to make frequently-used special characters easier. For smaller law firms, a feature allows you to organize files by client/matter. Finally, spell-checking legal documents has become more effective with the addition of over 14,000 legal terms, abbreviations and cases through Black's Law Dictionary.

Vair suggested that those expecting to upgrade to Version 8 consider waiting to pick up the Legal Edition package. With everything that the edition includes, it's hard to wait. For both authors' offices, WordPerfect is the present and foreseeable future choice.

Upcoming SLUG Meetings

On December 17, Garrett Dailey, Esquire, will demonstrate LAWGIC's new interview and document generation software. Watch the SCBA event calendar at www.sacbar.org for SLUG meeting topics, including the annual Saturday Seminar in January.

SLUG Meeting Information

SLUG meets on the third Wednesday of each month, at noon at The Delta King, 1000 Front Street, Sacramento. Dues-paid SLUG members can pay $17, or get their payment refunded, by the Monday before the meeting. The cost after then is $22. Non-members pay $2.50 more. Mail your check (payable to "SCBA") to Tonya Mathews, Office of Administrative Hearings, 501 J St., Ste. 230, Sacramento 95814, 445-4926. Everyone must reserve and make a menu choice with Ms. Mathews. For information about SLUG, or to suggest meeting topics, call SLUG chair W. Stuart Home III at 447-7771.