Legal Writing

Deal Proof?A Document-Analysis and Proofreading Tool

By Ken Adams

I said in this blog post that I planned to do a post about Deal Proof. Well, here it is.

Deal Proof is a Thomson West product; click here to go to the relevant page of the Thomson West website. It’s a document-analysis and proofreading tool that many of the big firms subscribe to. It checks for inconsistent use of defined terms, creates lists of open items, and performs various other proofreading and summarizing tasks.

I had access to Deal Proof in the waning days of my big-firm practice, so I didn’t have much opportunity to put it through its paces, and I’ve always been curious about how useful practitioners find it and whether they actually use it. I recently had the opportunity to speak about Deal Proof with Fred Fulton, a partner in the Dallas office of Thompson & Knight. Here’s what he had to say:

Deal Proof is a great tool that frees up brainpower to be used on matters that are more productive and interesting than checking for consistency in the use of defined terms and similar mind-numbing aspects of document drafting. I use it regularly and expect those working for me to do the same. I consider it as essential as spell-check, and am disappointed when I am reviewing documents submitted to me if I find an error that would have been caught by Deal Proof.

If you’ve used Deal Proof, I’d be interested to hear what you think of it and how it compares with any other tools that perform some of its functions.

Full post as published by AdamsDrafting on June 23, 2008 (boomark / email).