FirmStyle is a unique customisation service that enables you to automatically download PLC standard documents in your firm’s house style.
FirmStyle offers you significant benefits.
It saves you substantial time and money annually.
It removes word processing headaches and enables your lawyers to work on PLC standard documents without secretarial help from out of the office or home.
It enables you to integrate PLC standard documents with your own seamlessly.
FirmStyle demonstrates PLC’s commitment to investing in innovative technologies to deliver better customer service.
When you click on the Word tab of a PLC standard document, it will appear on your screen in MS Word, already set up with your firm’s margins, fonts, spacing, heading, numbering and definition styles. These can be set up on your firm’s Word template or PLC’s. (For more on Word templates see Saving you time, cost and inconvenience.)
Advanced features such as automatic table of contents and cross-references can be activated or disabled.
The standard document cover sheet will be in your firm's format, displaying your logo and firm details. It is even possible to tailor the introductory, testimonium and execution wording to your firm’s preferred language.
In short the documents will look and feel your own.
To date converting standard documents in to your house style has proved a difficult, time-consuming and costly process for both secretaries and lawyers.
When deadlines are tight or secretaries unavailable to assist lawyers, documents may even be sent to clients without the conversion process having been undertaken.
FirmStyle removes this headache.
Firms who regularly use PLC standard documents calculate that FirmStyle improves client turnaround times and saves thousands of pounds annually.
PLC clients are increasingly saving substantial additional amounts of money by replacing some or all standard documents maintained internally by lawyers or PSLs in favour of PLC versions.
FirmStyle makes this strategy more appealing by making the documents look and feel your own from the outset.
PLC’s integration technology can enable your lawyers to identify your documents and the relevant PLC standard documents in single mixed lists or search results on your intranet. You can effectively create one seamless collection from two sources. (For more information on integration, see Intranets: integrating PLC materials (www.practicallaw.com/8-107-3911).)
Standard documents are complicated stylistically. As described above, they include a variety of different idioms, suchas page layouts, font settings and numbering styles for cover sheets, definitions, clauses, schedules and testimonium.
Many firms build these styles into their own detailed Word template. This ensures the styles apply consistently throughout the document. The document is less liable to corrupt and crash when underpinned by such a well-structured template. (For more information on Word templates, see MS Word templates and the definition of house style (www.practicallaw.com/4-102-8181).)
Other firms, with less technical expertise, prefer to adopt PLC’s template but want to alter the styles output by it to reflect their preferences. For example, they want the font to be Arial 11 point throughout and they want the numbering to be scientific rather than alphanumeric. (For more information on PLC’s Word template, see How do I use the PLC Word template? (www.practicallaw.com/0-101-3271))
An experienced secretary typically takes at least 45 minutes to convert a 20-30-page agreement from our template settings to your firm’s. An experienced secretary typically takes around 30 minutes to apply your firm’s style preferences to our settings.
An inexperienced or less technical secretary or lawyer not only takes longer to do this. They often do not understand how to manipulate the templates at all. This may cause the document to corrupt, leading to further loss of time and inconvenience.
The FirmStyle solution is to provide you with PLC standard documents already set up in accordance with your firm’s template or with our template altered to output the styles you want.
A key part of the solution is that it is straightforward at your end. PLC’s specialist IT and template development team undertakes almost all the technical work. Your IT department does not need to allocate significant time or resources to it. Indeed, if you do not have relevant IT expertise in-house, this is not generally an issue.
The key requirement is for you to provide us with a specification of your house style accompanied by a sample standard document. On the basis of this information, our technical team prepares a series of mapping, template and content transformation rule files that enable our standard documents to be output according to your requirements.
We send you a sample output from the rule files to ensure it meets your specification. Once you have signed off the sample, we provide you with a two-day live trial to ensure there are no issues viewing the documents in your environment. Usually the service is switched on for all staff immediately afterwards.
You access the standard documents as before, so there are no training requirements or costs.
FirmStyle covers the classic legal agreements and clauses on our site. These are the complex standard documents that take a significant amount of time to convert.
FirmStyle does not currently extend to certain other classes of standard documents, as it would not be cost effective to prepare the rule files. These classes of documents are:
Board minutes.
Notices.
Checklists
Miscellaneous standard documents such as articles of association, which follow different numbering and paragraph styles.
We aim to extend FirmStyle to customise the look and feel (but not the Word template) of many of these standard documents by the middle of 2005.
For a full list of standard documents covered by FirmStyle in each service, see:
The technology behind FirmStyle has taken a number of years and a seven-figure investment to develop and bring to market.
We have had to overcome numerous technical hurdles, such as how to ensure the documents outputted to FirmStyle customers are equally up-to-date as PLC generic documents.
We have also had to create a streamlined system for completing the customisation work within approximately 60 IT-developer hours, to make the process cost effective.
FirmStyle is indicative of PLC’s commitment to investing in innovative technologies to deliver a better, faster and more cost effective service.
The cost to you is an annual fee combined with a one-off set-up charge. The amount you pay largely depends on the nature of your house style and the level of customisation that you require.
This method of payment is favourable to you as it enables you to defray the costs of creating your bespoke rule files over a number of years.
Assuming one lawyer uses at least one PLC standard document a day, FirmStyle should pay for itself in a matter of months.
For a free quotation, all you need to do is forward to your account manager a copy of a standard document in your house style. Please ensure the document represents the breadth of styles in use, in particular schedule styles.
If you do not know your account manager, please see below, Contact us now..
All quotations are based on our standard terms applying. (Click here to see FirmStyle: Additional service terms (www.practicallaw.com/2-102-8182).)
If you wish to find out more about FirmStyle, please contact your account manager or call subscriptions on 0207 202 1200.