Filevine, a legal work platform, has launched .vine, a document format designed for legal drafting. It powers Filevine Document Assembly, a document generation tool that replaces word processors such as Microsoft Word and Google Docs. Document Assembly auto-populates data, clauses and other information stored in Filevine to accelerate legal document generation and ensure accuracy.

Combined, the company says .vine and Document Assembly introduce a vastly better way to draft complaints, demand letters, interrogatories and more.

"We believe that Document Assembly and .vine will become the new standard in the legal industry, replacing word processors that are ill-equipped for the job," said Ryan Anderson, CEO at Filevine.

"Fundamentally, legal work is about producing and exchanging complex documents. By bringing this task into our platform - and connecting it to all the case data Filevine collects - we're enabling legal teams to streamline a crucial part of their work."

Since the 1990s, most legal teams have relied on Microsoft Word to draft documents. This legacy technology drove a wedge between case management systems where teams collect data and the document management systems where they store and edit Word Docs.

Typically, teams must copy-paste everything from names and dates to company holdings and expenses from their case management system to documents. After acquiring the contract lifecycle management system, Outlaw, in 2021, Filevine recognised an opportunity to utilise Outlaw's drafting technology to improve on legacy word processors and static document formats.

"In 2017, when we set out to create a new word processor and doc format from scratch, we focused on contracts because they're harder than other legal scenarios in terms of workflow, content structure, negotiation/redlining, permissions and version control," said Outlaw's CTO and Co-founder, Evan Schneyer.

"We had the sense that if we could solve these problems in the contract space, we could solve them anywhere. And now, the .vine format represents the extension of Outlaw's market-proven contracting technology to add loads of formatting capabilities that are mission-critical in a broader legal context: firm-specific headers & branding, pleading lines, captions and much more."

By inventing a new document format and assembly tool for legal documents, Filevine aims to make the drafting process faster, less tedious and more accurate. Teams in Mass Tort, Personal Injury, Immigration, and Corporate Legal will especially benefit from dynamic .vine files and the Document Assembly tool. Combined, they enable users to:

• Auto-populate data stored anywhere in Filevine. This includes names, dates, tables, expenses, company holdings, saved clauses, and more.
• Bidirectionally sync data, meaning that changes to data in a .vine document automatically update data in the Filevine database, and likewise, changes in the Filevine database are automatically pushed to .vine documents.
• Use conditional logic so that .vine templates adapt to multiple contingencies. For example, conditional logic can automatically change language in a letter to an insurance company based on the insurance type (Liability, UIM, No-Fault, etc.).
• Make redlines and comments to facilitate contextual feedback and accurate edits.
• Securely store and share documents with clients, colleagues,and co-counsel. A .vine can be viewed in any web browser or exported as a docx or pdf.

"It never made sense for lawyers to use the same word processors that middle-school students use to write their first essays," said Cain Elliot, Head Legal Futurist at Filevine. "With this launch, we're equipping legal teams with first document technology that stands up to the complexity of their work."  

The .vine launch follows a record-breaking Q3 for Filevine, which surpassed a 140% net retention rate. Clients continue to purchase more licenses and ancillary products to capture their entire legal workflow in one platform. With .vine and Document Assembly, Filevine now supports the most labor-intensive legal work of all.

https://www.filevine.com/