Legal Humor

OK, our selection for this month is not legal-specific. It does provide a humorous, tongue-in-cheek view of what customer support might have been needed when the first book replaced a scroll. Our Customer Support Department loves this one.

Watch the Introducing the Book video >>

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No More Manual Installs of Your ProDoc Updates?

Yes, it is true. Soon you will no longer need to manually install routine ProDoc updates. Instead, every time you open ProDoc, and if you are connected to the Internet, ProDoc will “phone home”. It will then download and install any updates we have prepared for you.

We expect that after you set up your account for WebUpdate™, you'll only need to manually install a ProDoc update when we make major changes to the ProDoc operating system.

Another benefit to you is that we will be able to provide you some updates more quickly. For instance, we add user-requested enhancements to forms throughout the year. In the past, we waited until the next update shipment to provide them to you. With WebUpdate, you will receive them as quickly as we are able to process the changes into our system.

We’ll roll out this feature slowly. This enables us to give you more personal service if/when you have questions about the switch-over.

Watch for an email from us in the coming months titled “ProDoc - Important information about your license” for information on how to get started with ProDoc WebUpdate.

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Coming Updates

Listed below are the major enhancements now planned for our December release.

Adoptions and Paternity ¹ - Due to HB3997, we're modifying the language in four forms dealing with the termination of parental rights of alleged fathers after January 1, 2008.

Family Law¹ - We're updating:

• The Temporary and Final Orders for a Divorce, a Suit Affecting the Parent-Child Relationship, and a Modification to allow more space to type in possession orders for children under the age of three,
• The Release of Claim Exempt for Child of Divorced or Separated Parent to match the updated IRS form,
• Six Harris County forms to match forms promulgated by the District Clerk, and
• The substantially changed Notice of Withholding/Income Withholding Order to match the new form promulgated by the Attorney General's Office.

Additionally, we're modifying language regarding due diligent search for alleged fathers for suits filed after January 1, 2008, based on 2007 Legislative changes in HB 3997 to two pattern jury charges.

Finally, we're adding "Approved as to Form" blocks for six forms for suits filed in Bexar or Harris Counties.

Lipman's Wills & Trusts - There are two major enhancements coming to this volume:

• We're adding a new series of children's questions to the volume to make it much faster to address your clients' preferences concerning their children in the wills and trusts documents.  It will now be far easier to disinherit a child and to provide for other beneficiaries when your clients have no children (or are disinheriting all of their children).
• We're revising the powers of attorney forms allowing you to give the agent the power to amend or revoke a revocable trust in addition to the power to create a revocable trust.

Litigation - For the Settlement Agreement and Release and the Settlement Agreement and Release (Medical), we're adding the option to include a jurat or an acknowledgement and we changed the signature blocks to bring in the name of the person signing on behalf of an entity. We're changing the Wage Claim Form and the Request for Copy of Peace Officer's Crash Report to incorporate the changes made by the agencies who draft these forms. Finally, we're updating the two versions of the Intake Form for the Texas Workforce Commission, Civil Rights Division based on agency changes, and we're updating our version to a full graphic form.

Probate - We will provide you with four new forms to address the requirements created by SB593. Section 128A of the Probate Code has been extensively revised and now all beneficiaries under the will of a person dying on or after September 1, 2007 must receive notice of the probate and a copy of the will. The personal representative (PR) must file an affidavit to show compliance no more than 90 days after the will was admitted to probate. We're adding the PR's Affidavit of Compliance, the Notice to Beneficiaries, and two forms of Waiver of Notice for both Independent and Dependent Administrations. As you would expect, they will work seamlessly with the rest of the forms in this volume.

Real Estate¹ - We're revising one form because HB271 adds a requirement that previous use of a house for manufacture of methamphetamines be disclosed. And, due to HJR72, we're modifying the provisions relating to Home Equity Loans under the Texas Constitution in several forms. We're also removing the Spanish language translation of the Notice Concerning Extension of Credit until the Office of the Consumer Credit Commissioner issues a new translation. Finally, we're changing the signature blocks on our HUD-1 forms to match the newly promulgated HUD-1s.

Federal Criminal Defense - We're updating eight Administrative Office (AO) forms pursuant to a recent change to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 49.1 regarding privacy. We also removed from the volume three AO forms that were deleted by the Administrative Office in November 2007.

Thanks for being a ProDoc subscriber!

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ProDoc Customer Support: Setting Default Answers

Setting default answers in ProDoc makes it much more efficient for you to generate your documents. As a quick example, suppose most of your work is in a specific county—Bexar County for instance. By making Bexar the default answer every time a question arises about the county name, you merely need to click Enter instead of typing in Bexar every time. And... that's just a glimpse of the possibilities. So, if you want to stop retyping repetitive information and reduce the risk of errors in your documents...

Read more about setting Default Answers in ProDoc.

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Trial Tip: The Florida Jury Selection Blog

Or, as the blog call itself... "The cure for the Common Voir Doir" and here is how the editor, Robert W. Kelley, describes the purpose of the Blog:

"This blog is designed for my fellow trial attorneys, who, like me, have spent their careers in the courtroom seeking victory and justice for their clients. We know that jury selection is a critically important process and that it can be maddeningly difficult. We walk a tight-rope over a mine-field trying to find jurors who can be truly open-minded; people who will open up their hearts and minds to hear our client’s case. And we know from experience that in order for true justice to prevail, the jury that decides the case must be nothing less than “omni exceptione majores” - above all challenge.

This blog is a repository of my twenty-five years experience in the courtroom as it pertains to voir dire."

Visit the Florida Jury Selection Blog >>

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Practice Tip: Risky Business - Some Thought on Legal Malpractice Insurance

Law Practice Today recently published an excellent article on legal malpractice by Ed Poll. Here's the introduction to the article:

"Malpractice is a predominant concern for the profession, and more so for small firms and independent practitioners. Mandatory disclosure of malpractice liability insurance is a growing trend and with that comes increased risk of malpractice suits. This article investigates these recent trends in malpractice insurance and provides preventative measures you may take to avoid malpractice."

View the compete article >>

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Tech Tip: Take a Second Look at OCR Software

OCR software is that wonderful software that converts written words into digital files. Quality of the various programs has been uneven and many users are unimpressed with the results.

ABBEY^® FineReader 9.0 just might change your mind. It provides powerful functionality for converting images received from a scanner, a digital camera or by fax, as well as PDF files, into editable and searchable formats. It accurately retains formatting and layout of documents and supports a wide range of recognition languages and output file formats.

And, it enables you to "shoot" documents with your digital camera, export the images to your computer, and then convert them back to electronic documents.

Learn more about ABBY Finereader >>

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Tech Tip: Scared Straight... Dangers of Practicing Unsafe Computer Usage

Perhaps you've heard everyone tell you that you need a good firewall, a good anti-virus program that regularly updates its virus definitions, and anti-spyware on your computer—but you've been too busy to be bothered by it.

If nothing else has convinced you so far, read this article... it'll scare you straight to a computer guru to finally protect your computer from the myriad of miscreants out there.

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View Past Issues of this eZine

Looking for a Tech Tip from a past ProDoc eZine... but can't find that old eZine? We keep recent past issues on our web site for your review.

View past issues of the ProDoc eZine >>

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Come By and Meet Us

Come by and visit us if you'll be attending — we'd love to see you!

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Vent—Tell Us What's on Your Mind

This is your opportunity to what's on your mind. Email us your suggestions and other feedback.

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