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How ProDoc Can Help You Cope with Our Tough Financial Times
These are scary times and it's even more so for solo and small firms when it seems like it's only you against the world. We hear from enough of your colleagues to know that you're facing difficult and trying times.

And, we want to remind you of some of the ways that ProDoc can help you weather the times:

• Keep matters that you may have formerly referred out - Our subscription program provides you access to the forms you need for many areas of law in which you formerly may not have an interest. While we cannot make you an expert in those areas of law, our automated forms will help you tremendously in those areas that are not as familiar to you.
• Add new areas of law to your practice - We've heard of litigators adding family law cases to their practices, of family law attorneys adding estate planning to their practices, of real estate attorneys adding probate to their practices, etc. Visit here to see all the areas of law that ProDoc covers.
• Use ProDoc to your advantage in your marketing - Take advantage of the incredible efficiency ProDoc provides you for rainmaking purposes. For instance, when marketing your legal services to small businesses, you might offer to provide greatly-reduced-rate wills packages to the firm's employees in return for all of their legal business. This is a win-win for everyone because you can generate the documents so quickly and the business has another benefit for its employees.
• Consider alternative billing that is more consumer friendly - As consumers are squeezed more and more they will shop even more for their legal representation. For many consumers, flat fee billing is very attractive because it limits their risks and enables them to compare lawyer fees. And, while flat fee billing can be daunting to you, the efficiency ProDoc provides your firm reduces much of the risk to you. ProDoc provides you a major competitive advantage over non-ProDoc firms when it comes to enticing new clients.

And, if you are going to rely even more on ProDoc, we suggest that you invest some time in our free training to squeeze all the efficiency you possibly can from your ProDoc investment. Call 800-759-5418, option 1 to schedule training for yourself or for you and your staff.

You can also go to our training page, review the available topics, and register to take view any that interest you.

Or, review our self-running video training offerings and invest a few minutes any time of the day or night in learning some new skills in ProDoc.

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• an update in June for updated forms due to new legislation effective July 1, 2008,
• an update in September for updated forms pursuant to new legislation effective October 1, 2008, and
• an update in December for updated forms due to new legislation effective January 1, 2009.

We anticipate that you will also receive at least three significant updates this year from us on CDs. Those will arrive in your office in June, September, and December of this year.

As always, one of our most important commitments to you is to provide you with updated forms prior to their effective dates when legislatively-driven.

You will also receive WebUpdates throughout the year from us as form changes occur. Here are the WebUpdates we have planned at the present time:

January

• Family Law - We are updating the Civil Cover Sheet for the 11th Circuit, pursuant to an update by the Court.
• Business Organizations - We are correcting an error in the Partnership Agreement that was reported by a customer.

February

• Real Estate - The HUD-1 and HUD-1A have been replaced and we will send the new versions in this WebUpdate. This includes all three versions of the HUD-1 which we offer: Standard, Borrower Information Only, and Seller Information Only.

Family Law Parenting Plans Update - We have removed the parenting plans in ProDoc for the Circuit Courts that have been superseded. And, we are closely monitoring developments at the state and local level. The Florida Supreme Court is considering changes for over forty forms resulting from the October 1, 2008 statutory change (Senate Bill 2532), including a new Parenting Plan. We will provide you these new forms as soon as they are announced, and we will include any new local Plans as well.

Remember that ProDoc form 11-300 already is a Parenting Plan that contains the latest terminology and statutory requirements. It works as a stand-alone document or in conjunction with judgments for dissolution, paternity and supplemental proceedings.

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For more information about the eFiling system visit:

• www.17th.flcourts.org/Probate_eFiling/probate_efiling.html or
• www.clerk-17th-flcourts.org/ClerkWebsite/BCCOC2/E-Filing/elec_doc_filing.aspx

For more information about the ProDoc’s participation in Broward County’s eFiling initiative visit:

https://efileflorida.prodoc.com/Default.aspx

If you wish to eFile, be sure to contact , eFiling Manager, for information about and/or to obtain the special ProDoc software for eFiling.

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Q: ProDoc produces RTF files and not Word files. That means that I have to save the file as a Word file and delete the RTF file. Why does the system not produce true MS Word files?
A: This is an issue faced only by Microsoft Word users. We create the ProDoc master template files as WordPerfect files. The converter that MS uses to convert WordPerfect files to Word files does a rather poor job and document formatting suffers greatly. However, WP files convert quite well to RTF, which is easily read by both Word Perfect and MS Word. So, When Microsoft Word is your default word processor, ProDoc generates your final documents as RTF files to best preserve the original document formatting.

Q: When I discover a mistake, how do I get this information to you? Same for a suggestion?
A: You may send an email to . Please be sure to include information about how to contact you by phone in case we need more information from you.

Q: Why won't you add a calendar with a monthly view to SOS?
A: The simple answer is that the database behind ProDoc and SOS is not robust enough to enable us to offer the monthly view. Next month we will tell you about our future development plans for both ProDoc and SOS. Those plans include rewriting both to a more robust database and adding a monthly view calendar to SOS. However, those are major undertakings and will probably not debut until at least 2010. However, we've started preliminary planning for this project. That is why we have not added other enhancements to SOS that have been suggested by users.

Q: Do you have any plans to make ProDoc compatible with Macs®. If so, when? If not why not?
A: In spite of a growing market share, Macs still are a very small percentage of the market. To rewrite, and then maintain, ProDoc to run on the Mac operating system would be a very resource-intensive effort. At the present, time we believe that a wiser use of our resources it to keep developing more products for the Windows® operating system that still enjoys somewhere around a 90% market share.

However, in the long-term (probably four or five years out) we will rewrite ProDoc in a computer language that will be cross-platform compatible. That's computer-geek for it will run on both the Windows and Mac operating systems.

Q: Is there a more user-friendly method for customizing items in pleading form packages such as the firm signature block. I'd like an easy way to insert our usual pleading signature block so that it imports across all the forms in our package and remains through the numerous form updates.
A: Yes, the answer is to modify the import files for your volumes. ProDoc imports the signature block files into your document so you need to edit these files only once and your signature blocks are set for life. For more assistance on this, call our Tech Support team at 800-759-5418, option 4.

Submit your ProDoc question(s) >>

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View a step-by-step guide on Customizing the Formatting of Your ProDoc Documents >>

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You can read past postings or register with the forum (free of charge) and post your own questions. Use the Search function in the forum to more quickly find specific topics. When you post a question, please mention your state of residence when you post your question since that will often influence the answer you receive.

Visit the Lipman's Wills and Trusts forum >>

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Read Computerworld®'s Don't fall victim to the 'Free Wi-Fi' scam article >>

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Discover simple ways to save energy with your computer >>

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