Why do lawyers like wordperfect

Word vs. WordPerfect A few weeks ago the Word vs. Corel WordPerfect Advantages: Formatting fixes: The reveal codes feature allows for quick formatting fixes for users comfortable with WordPerfect code conventions.

This is especially helpful when collaborating with other users who may not be formatting documents correctly. Specialization: The legal profession is the largest retained market share for WordPefect, and Corel caters to legal professionals with specific tools such as options for pleading numbering, redaction, and a pleading editor.

Document formatting: Headers and footers are easy to manipulate, and page numbering is independent of footers. This can be especially useful for pleading papers. Although the professional versions of Word and allow for easy PDF conversions as well. Disadvantages: Fewer users: Although WordPerfect retains many users in the legal community, the majority of law firms now use Word.

WordPerfect use outside of the legal profession is rare. Support costs: WordPerfect adds to support and training overhead. Programs may also have to plan to train new staff who have not been using WordPerfect - or let them use Word instead.

Best answer: Historically, WP listened to the legal community, and had lots of things that worked very well for legal document needs see especially paragraph numbering!

However, to the degree that soft-copy sharing needs to happen, those firms have typically switched to Word as a concession to market pressures. That's what new attorneys are familiar with using, which decreases training time and cost. Additionally, switching back and forth from one program to another dramatically increases the likelihood of the document bombing, always at before a filing.

For what it's worth, I don't think that the actual usage of the Reveal Codes feature was a tremendous functional issue as much as it was a psychological one - not many of the folks I've assisted over the years really knew how to use the feature productively if at all.

Similarly, a "well formatted" document is just as easy to obtain in Word, once one understands how the different programs think about their formatting. I say this as a long-time WP user who made the switch to Word not particularly willingly, but I'm now familiar and comfortable with both in fact, WP skills have been unused for a bit, so I'm getting rusty there. I don't think that an original legal document has been written anywhere in years - they're always amalgams of multiple previous documents, regardless of the program source.

The other day at my job I had to help one of the secretaries open a WP file, and it was pretty easy to find an appropriate converter online. I work in a probation office and we've transitioned from WP to Word but just in the past year or two.

A lot of the legal stuff from other offices is still done in WP. In our case, it's just a resistance to change, because the people who create and edit these documents don't want to learn a new program and convert all of their old files. I use Word. The wordperfect cornering of the legal market is long past, but pockets remain. I think that many lawyers are resistant to change because our product is documents.

Wanting to continue to be sure we can do it the right way is a big part of it. I used to work for a law firm where the majority of employees used WP. In fact, when the Firm Administrator sent me my offer letter it was in WP and I couldn't even open it! I had to send it to Mr.

Mixtape who had to convert it to something so he could open it in something else. I was the only employee using Word not even the IT guy knew anything about it and was useless whenever I had issues.

Interesting thread! WordPerfect tailored its product and I believe even sold some specific add ons for the legal market back in the 80's. Some of the advantages have been described above. Couple that with how much law firms hate change and you have WP remaining in many firms despite Word becoming the de facto standard outside of law. A few years ago, this was still true and it was all because of "Reveal Codes. WP Reveal Codes permitted this because it basically reduced the program to the electronic equivalent of a typewriter.

He is available for talks, presentations and confidential consultations. Byte of Prevention Blog An upgraded version of WordPerfect — once the word processing program of choice for lawyers — was released recently. The news was met with a thunderous and collective yawn. For the rest of us, there are lessons to be learned from the passage of WordPerfect into the brontosaurus boneyard: Technology is fickle.

Smart practitioners recognize this before investing in new tools and training. Be sure you will be able to access your archives in the future. You never know when it might be important to dig into a closed file.

Finding it in a format as inaccessible as ancient Sanskrit would be a major downer. Lawyers can log on from any internet-enabled device and access their word processing software in the cloud. And using that software, they can create documents that can be stored online in one convenient location. Even better—there are collaboration tools built right into the software, allowing lawyers to work together in real time.

These online collaboration features make it easier than ever to streamline the document creation process, saving both time and money. This includes ensuring that you understand how the data will be handled by that company; where the servers on which the data will be stored are located; who will have access to the data; and how and when it will be backed up, among other things. This is because they often have more robust features, and for that reason many firms continue to use them.

But whenever I need to collaborate on a document with my colleagues, I always use my online word processing tool of choice, Google Docs discussed below. First, if your firm is already part of the Microsoft ecosystem, you should consider Microsoft Office Like most cloud-based word processing software, it supports real-time collaboration and sharing features.