[crazygringo]

I'm surprised Google Docs doesn't support all the features lawyers need by now. Seems like a market they'd want to go after, and their .docx conversion seems decent enough for basic formatting, tables, etc.

Curious what the top 3 features are that are missing. The article only mentions multi-level decimal clause numbering (e.g. 9.1.2). Seems like it would be a very easy feature to add. I've heard that line numbering is also a big legal thing, but Docs already has that.

[jpbryan]

I actually wrote a detailed breakdown of why Google Docs doesn't meet lawyers' needs!

https://theredline.versionstory.com/p/why-lawyers-will-never...

The short answer is Google Docs:

- Requires all-or-nothing adoption which is a non-starter for law-firms

- Does not support commit atomicity

- Does not store a comprehensive history of the document

[trinix912]

It's also not nearly as scriptable as Word is. Word has had macros ("fields") since its first Windows versions, VBA for over 20 years now, it's easy to develop complex add-ons - where I live we've had one for grammar checking for decades now (speaking of that, Google Docs' language features for less popular languages are far behind Word's). Various software supports export to Word and some programs even import from it. You'd be surprised what levels of automation has been achieved with Word.

Files are also easily shared (on physical media, email, no need for anyone to have a Google account to edit and send them back), encrypted, burned onto a CD for storage. DOC/DOCX are ubiquitous and stable file formats. No worries about data leaks in the cloud as it's all local by default...

[jpbryan]

Correct. Lawyers load their Word instances up with many add-ins specific to their practice. Microsoft Word add-ins are the entire product surface for many legal tech companies.

It's somewhat analogous to how coders use add-ins in their IDE but if only one IDE could run them.

[kjellsbells]

Not a lawyer, but for the last 20+ years I've dragged around (or recreated) a normal.dot file that has all the styles I use with the keybindings I like.

The productivity boost you get from having a consistent environment is insane. You never need to care about the ribbon, your documents look good, and your mouse/keyboard ergonomics are wonderful with a good normal.dot.

It's like people who have their vimrc or emacs config down to a fine art.

[crazygringo]

Oh, that makes tons of sense. Yeah, that would basically mean a switch to anything would never happen, I definitely see that. Thank you!

[crazygringo]

Amazing thanks!

So as far as formatting goes, it seems like it's only list formatting and small caps you've identified, am I missing anything else? (I am baffled by Docs' refusal to add small caps.)

But then as far as workflow is concerned, I'm not sure Docs is as unusable as you say it is -- the commit atomicity and comprehensive history aren't supported by Word either, are they? That's just a function of maintaining 20 separate copies of the file with each set of changes. You can still do that with Docs if you want to, rather than relying on the version history. And then "Tools > Compare documents" lets you merge in all the changes from another document, in an atomic way if you want. And if you want to use the revision history in a "master" version, you can used named versions as well.

Yes, everybody at the firm needs to use Docs. That's not unique to law -- every company that switches from MS365 to Google makes that kind of overnight transition, but it makes sense because you're paying one company or the other, not both.

It's the communication between firms that is going to be stuck in .docx basically forever though, so this is where Google needs to improve its conversion. Ideally Google would also build a "send a copy/transfer" feature so a firm can receive a Google Doc but know that from the moment it "opens" it, a new copy is made on their local Drive so the sending firm never sees edits or activity. But because that feels like it would be too easy to mess up, I think actual .docx file attachments will themselves be immortal, even if both sides used Docs.

[jpbryan]

>the commit atomicity and comprehensive history aren't supported by Word either, are they? That's just a function of maintaining 20 separate copies of the file with each set of changes.

Sure, you could, but that defeats the purpose of Google Docs which is to make the document collaborative. If you save each iteration in a different Doc, you might as well use Word.

It would also add friction to the workflow because a lawyer would need to download the document from Google Docs whenever they circulate it to a client or counterparty.

The best solution to the problem, in my opinion, is a docx native version control system. I write about how that works in our product Version Story in "On Building Git for Lawyers."

https://theredline.versionstory.com/p/on-building-git-for-la...

[crazygringo]

> If you save each iteration in a different Doc, you might as well use Word.

Funnily enough, that's how I (and a lot of people I know) use Google Docs.

The version history is great if you accidentally delete something and want to go back, but I don't know anyone who relies on the version history as a kind of meaningful archive -- it's just too fragile. Unless you create named versions, changes get collapsed, and when you make a copy, the version history doesn't get copied.

And it doesn't prevent collaboration -- multiple people can still collaborate on one set of changes in one "branch" file, while other people can collabroate on another set of changes in another "branch" file. When collaboration is done on both, they can get merged into the master file.

You've definitely convinced me that Docs doesn't work for law firms, but mainly for other reasons. Using multiple versions of files doesn't defeat the purpose of Docs -- it still makes collaboration much easier, and nobody's stuck e-mailing files back and forth that are out-of-date by the time they're opened.

Your idea of a VCS for .docx is intriguing though. Good luck!

[jpbryan]

Thank you!

[IshKebab]

Sounds like lawyers should be using Git and Markdown! Ha I know...

[kjkjadksj]

Docx conversion isn’t great actually. I happened to open a docx with embedded png images and google docs couldn’t display them. If they whiff on a widely used image format like png I imagine there are a lot of shortcomings.

[crazygringo]

Oof, oh yeah. I mainly deal with text, but I remember there are multiple image formats I think Word supports that Docs doesn't. Also basic vector drawings don't convert. I don't understand how stuff like that hasn't been fixed by now.