Maintainable Documentation

Some divorce documentation, especially the parenting plan need to be referenced, maintained, and updated over a period of a decade or more.

If you are lazy and get paid regardless off results, as most divorce lawyers are, then you slap a piece of shit document together full of tabs, spaces, maybe using auto page numbering. Without a template or structure it takes several times longer to produce and update, but that's OK because you bill by the hour, not the results. The client pays more for your poor skills and productivity.

I received a document so bad, it's outline numbering botched terribly that it actually created a legal ambiguity. After correcting and complaining several times, I told my lawyer to leave it that way (since I was sure he wasn't going to fix it) so that I could call the document's validity into question in the future and attempt to exercise the severability clause. Now you'd think he'd acquiesce in embarrassment and fix it, Nope! He'd rather show his power and control over his client than do the right thing legally.

I gave up on my lawyer being efficient and doing as I asked, I could see he was just a stubborn ass. So I did it myself and it already helped at my hearing yesterday in finding the answer more quickly and accurately to the Magistrate's questions.

What did I do? Nothing a current elementary school student couldn't do, common sense and organization. I took my lawyer's haphazard shitty document and carefully edited it without changing its meaning. I changed all hard coded tabs, numbering, etc to paragraph positioning, widow control (keep with next, keep together), defined styles, use of HEADING n styles and auto numbering.

This helps make the document more readable. The use of HEADING n styles allows use of the Outline view to focus on sections of the document and also allows you to generate an automatic Table of Contents (important when they run over 90 pages).

Was that overkill? A waste of time? NO!! Just one advantage in preparation, one need for an update and the effort is paid for. And the odds of that in a decade are guaranteed several times over.

But why, oh why, do I have to fix what I paid so much for? It shouldn't be. The legal document is the end product that is charged at a very high price. Its internal organization, readability and maintainability are every bit as important as the punctuation and wording. Anything less is careless, sloppy, and of questionable value.

And when I get the time, I will take my former lawyers to court to answer that question. They think they took me for a sucker. We'll see who gets the last laugh! Vengeance, or in this case justice, is a meal best served cold, when my anger subsides and I can define their transgressions clearly and without emotion.

Status: Last Updated 12/13/08 6:40 PM