I think one thing important to not overlook is the value of HTML templating systems. I was exploring using Hugo for creating legal documents, and each paper and form can easily be populated using frontmatter. HTML is a lot more friendly for making legal documents than Word IMO, and can be exported to PDF all the same.
Running a Law Firm on Linux
101–110 of 263 posts
Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
if you are editing a 500 page document you should use other software for writing, perhaps use latex, and put the document in git. but i get that there are lots of lawyers who don’t want to learn any new tools. for all the other stuff you mentioned you have solutions for linux that work and conferencing software has clients these days for linux. you can use diff or visual diff tools for comparisons.
Git (VCS in general) seems like this absurd accidental secret of our profession. I use Fusion360 occasionally for hobby stuff, and its version 'control' is a joke, it's unfathomable to me how (especially since they're fellow engineers, technical people!) people can use and collaborate with it to build serious stuff. I think there's a lot of money to be made and a potential huge turning point in end user software for…
Attorneys don’t use Git, but they do use version control software. Examples are NetDocs, iManage, and even GDrive/Box/Dropbox (which are also document management systems). It largely depends on the firm.
There are some differences between what they need and what software engineers need.
Lawyers will sometimes use version control as layers in a release system, almost like development/staging/production (where production is the final executed copy). So version 1 will be the form, and version 2 will be the draft, etc.
Other times they will use it in a similar manner to engineers. But the top version is the working copy, and once they are satisfied with that draft they will version up.
Engineers use git to track changes and revert changes, but attorneys do not typically need to revert and once a document is executed, prior drafts aren’t really that important.
So there are fundamental differences between how lawyers and engineers look at version control.
It would be pretty nifty if attorneys/clients could collaborate using a version control system, but it’s hard enough to get attorneys to try any tool let alone a group of attorneys, so it would be a real stroke of luck to wedge yourself in here successfully.
Background: made a document management system for a law firm.
Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux
#103Also a lawyer here, I think the biggest hurdle is MS Word. MS word is the defacto IDE of the law world. We spend most of our time in Word. The drafting of documents won't be a problem with libre office. You can send a PDF to the client. But working with other lawyers/parties could be a challenge. I am not certain how Libreoffice could handle a 500 page memo being worked by 50+ people including thousands of track chan…
if only lawyers used git, sigh. fighting word is almost like fighting the system itself - some courts require filing in .doc!
Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux
#104Silly but honest question: why hasn't google docs taken over the legal world? I find g suite's collaborative editing waaay better than sending around docx/xlsx files with dates in the filenames.. and don't even get me started with that office365 thing.
Google Docs do not have the 1:1 feature parity as Word and LibreOffice. Law Firms are particular with their documents and templates. It have to be consistent across word processors which Google Docs lack. Google Docs is a ultra-lite version of Word/LibreOffice.
Workplace collaborative editing is superior, you are right. At the same time, it lacks a lot of thing in other way.
Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux
#105Also a lawyer here, I think the biggest hurdle is MS Word. MS word is the defacto IDE of the law world. We spend most of our time in Word. The drafting of documents won't be a problem with libre office. You can send a PDF to the client. But working with other lawyers/parties could be a challenge. I am not certain how Libreoffice could handle a 500 page memo being worked by 50+ people including thousands of track chan…
Not a lawyer. Zoom client on Linux works and is IMO more reliable (e.g. doesn't BSOD me) than windows, about the same reliability on Mac. Teams is unreliable on every platform (having used it for years on Linux, Mac, Win). Would recommend against it. Clearing documents metadata in Libreoffice, yes. It existed as far back as 7 years ago when I was running my own company, and my lawyers and I would be exchanging docume…
> Zoom client on Linux works and is IMO more reliable (e.g. doesn't BSOD me)
The Windows client has never BSODed on me. Sounds like a problem at your end.
Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux
#106Also a lawyer here, I think the biggest hurdle is MS Word. MS word is the defacto IDE of the law world. We spend most of our time in Word. The drafting of documents won't be a problem with libre office. You can send a PDF to the client. But working with other lawyers/parties could be a challenge. I am not certain how Libreoffice could handle a 500 page memo being worked by 50+ people including thousands of track chan…
I’m glad this is working for him, but it’s only been three months. The most important thing Word gets me is an excuse. If someone sends me a Word doc and I open it in Word and something is screwed up, I can say “oh, um, maybe something is wrong on your end.” If I’m using anything else—LibreOffice, Pages, Google Docs, anything—then there’s a possibility that it’s the software’s fault. I can’t be messing around with th…
I'm curious to know how you and the parent comment came about to know about HN, what an IDE is, Debian.
My friends working in non tech fields wouldn't even know that something other than Windows exists.
Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not a lawyer. Zoom client on Linux works and is IMO more reliable (e.g. doesn't BSOD me) than windows, about the same reliability on Mac. Teams is unreliable on every platform (having used it for years on Linux, Mac, Win). Would recommend against it. Clearing documents metadata in Libreoffice, yes. It existed as far back as 7 years ago when I was running my own company, and my lawyers and I would be exchanging docume…
> Zoom client on Linux works and is IMO more reliable (e.g. doesn't BSOD me) The Windows client has never BSODed on me. Sounds like a problem at your end.
I'm not the only one at my co that has experienced it BSODing. Windows generally BSODs on work machine at least once a week. Windows 10 patched monthly, locked down as hard as a machine can be under Windows.
30 plus years of Windows tech has taught me not to trust it with anything important.
Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux
#108Libreoffice subtly reformatting the documents sent to me by my divorce lawyer was not the most fun thing let me tell you.
A long time ago I was using linux and created my resume in Libreoffice and sent it to various job postings as a Word doc. Never had any luck. Then years later I learned that what looked perfect (my resume) in Libreoffice looked pretty terrible when opened with official MS Word. I always wondered if that impacted my application. A guy that couldn't bother to format his resume appropriately.
I learned long ago to never send an editable format to anyone who's not going to edit it.
Every device can open PDFs and see it exactly as it should be.
Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The standard choice for standard people should probably become an easy to use Linux distro. More and more, it is becoming exactly that with Chrome OS.
That seems to be the goal of Chrome OS. Unfortunately, Chrome OS prioritizes simplicity over functionality, so most of the non-technical users I talk to complain that it's not enough to replace windows. Something like Ubuntu with a really good wine interface would be much more valuable to the average user.
> really good wine interface
Do people even use wine for anything that's not gaming? Also nowadays Steam Proton takes care of that.
Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux
#110> A scanner still relies on macOS so, even though it's a virtualised macOS instance running atop Linux, it's still macOS.
Many people believe this violates the macOS license. Do you have a different read on it? https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macOS1014.pdf