The Iowa State Bar Association has replaced HotDocs Market with XpressDox Publisher for their IowaDocs® service. IowaDocs includes a library of hundreds of legal documents created, endorsed and copyrighted by The Iowa State Bar Association for use by the association’s members. These templates ask questions and automatically create customized documents based on the answers given.
“This decision will have a major impact on the market because IowaDocs is one of the leading providers of templates for law firms and it is likely that a number of other publishers will follow their lead,” said Chris Pearson of XpressDox.
“There were a number of reasons why we decided to leave HotDocs Market,” said Harry Shipley, Assistant Executive Director at the Iowa State Bar Association. “We needed a modern system that would make it easier for us to maintain our content which would be less onerous for our subscribers. In addition, we are working with XpressDox Platinum Partner Docugility for our template conversion and they have been able to really upgrade our templates through this conversion process.” Shipley goes on to say, “The XpressDox Publisher system is web-based and is launched directly from our own website rather than a shared market. The new system runs over the Internet, so there are no software or template downloads for subscribers. In addition, the system is extremely easy for users to learn and use, and training is provided in-product. XpressDox Publisher is also really fast, whereas the previous online service had some speed issues. Lastly, we wanted a software supplier who would be responsive to our change requests and XpressDox and Docugility have demonstrated to us that they really understand customer service,” said Shipley.
XpressDox Publisher runs on the established XpressDox document automation software “engine”, which ensures that it has the sophistication needed for advanced legal templates. Subscriber firms also only need to enter their firm information once and it is then re-used in all templates, saving time. Answer sets are saved for later recall and may be stored on the server or the user’s local disk, depending on subscriber preference.
“We have introduced a number of exciting functional improvements with XpressDox Publisher,” said Pearson. “Our priority was to make the system really easy to learn and use and we wanted it to be fast, even over slower internet connections. We also wanted to make it easy for publishers to incorporate the library into their own websites, so the system can be themed with the publisher’s colors and logo, and only a single hyperlink is required on the publisher’s website to launch the service,” he added. “One more really useful feature is that publishers can communicate with their users directly from the login screen – for example, to inform them of updates, or simply to market other products or services to subscribers, removing the need to constantly manage failed email addresses.”
Publishers can add any number of products (“template sets”) with different pricing and membership for each product, which allows publishers to introduce special offers – for example, first year practitioner discounts, or reduced membership for law students. XpressDox Publisher also includes user and subscriber management and provides extensive reporting on both users and template usage.
“We believe that providing this type of template library service for our Bar Association members is really important as many of our member firms are sole practitioners or smaller firms which do not have the time or financial resources to create their own library. This service allows new firms to be up and running more quickly, since they have access to an instant template library at a reasonable price,” said Shipley. “We also ensure that templates are updated regularly as legislation and regulations change,” he said. “All State Bars should be providing this value-add for their member firms,” he added.
For more information, contact:
IowaDocs: Visit www.iowadocs.net or email support@iowadocs.net
Docugility, LLC: Visit http://www.docugility.com/ or email info@docugility.com
XpressDox Publisher: Visit https://xdpublisher.com or email info@xpressdox.com
