Drafting modes in Clause9

Document assembly mode vs. Q&A mode

Clause9 offers two different modes to create legal documents. Typically you will first start in the document assembly mode (Assemble Document menu), where you will either start from scratch or from an existing template, interactively stacking and swapping building blocks, changing data and changing legal terminology to arrive at a new document.

The second mode (the Q&A mode) builds on the document created in the first mode, and presents a list of interactive questions to users. Using the answers given by the users, the underlying document is then interactively filled and modified where necessary.

Due to the deliberate constraints imposed by the questions & answers, interactive templates built using the Q&A mode can allow anyone — even users completely unfamiliar with the legal domain — to quickly create a document in an environment that offers legal guidance through user-friendly questions & answers.

If you are wondering why both modes are split: this increases flexibility, as opposed to the (admittedly simpler) situation of having only one integrated mode.

• Not every document requires a questionnaire. Some documents will, for example, be used as subdocuments (e.g., schedules / annexes) of some main document, and will not require their own questionnaire. It may also be the case that the document will be created through server-to-server interactions, i.e. by using Clause9's so-called API — e.g., a law firm that would generate thousands of dynamically composed documents in the context of a mass litigation defence.

• Multiple questionnaires can be built for one document, e.g. one simple questionnaire with just a few questions, and one advanced questionnaire with detailed questions for experts. Similarly, you may want to crate different questionnaires for very different products of a company, that all require different changes to be made to the standard sales agreement.

• A minority of advanced users like to work exclusively within Assemble document, never creating a questionnaire. This has the advantage that you are not constrained by the questionnaire's predefined questions & answers; it has the disadvantage that you need to be sufficiently familiar with the contents of the document, because you will lose all the "guardrails" offered by the questionnaire. In a certain way, you can see the Assemble document mode as the "raw" mode (more flexibility, but with no guidance) and the Q&A mode as the "polished" mode (less flexibility, but neatly packaged).

Workflow overview

While the Q&A mode and the document assembly mode are separate modes, they are strongly connected with each other.

As explained above, you build a questionnaire on top of a document created earlier in the document assembly mode. However, the other way around is also possible: you can send a document created in the Q&A mode to the document assembly mode.

For example, once a business user has provided answers, legal experts can also transfer the filled-in template back to the document assembly mode, to apply further customisations that were not allowed in the constrained Q&A mode.

In practice: transfer from Assemble Document to Design Q&A

In order to create a questionnaire, you therefore first need to open a saved document or binder, click on the menu at the right side of the screen, and choose the Send to Q&A command.

The document or binder will then be transferred to a new questionnaire, and this questionnaire will be opened in the Design Q&A mode. You will notice that the main menu at the top of the screen will change accordingly.

In practice: transfer from a Q&A to Assemble Document

When you have completed a questionnaire and saved its answers, you can click on the menu at the right side and choose Open as editable document.

The questionnaire's document will then be transferred to the Assemble document mode, where you can change it however you like. Or even send that modified document once again to the Design Q&A mode to create a new questionnaire.