Attorney William Palin is at it again, this time with his PaperWork app for iOS, which enables family law legal consumers in Massachusetts to fill out, edit and save documents in Family Court.  The app allows the user to share the documents with others and to sync between iOS devices.  The Massachusetts Child Support and Alimony Calculators are included in the app, and users can set reminders and local notifications.

Mr. Palin is a 2012 law school graduate, an adjunct professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, and a legal technology developer.  He developed the PaperHealth app that we blogged about in February, which enables legal consumers to “quickly and efficiently assign a HealthCare Proxy or create a ‘Living Will’ in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

By recognizing that technology can automate rote legal tasks, like filling out court forms, Mr. Palin is on the cutting edge of legal reform.  He is quoted in Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine as understanding that his apps will result in the loss of cash flow for law firms that are otherwise “billing multiple hours on a simple document that, with technology, can be generated in minutes.”

The creation of a simple document shouldn’t be the critical and time-consuming element of the [attorney-client] interaction. Instead it should be the attorney’s analysis and counsel.

LPR applauds Mr. Palin and his contribution to reforming legal practices in Massachusetts.  We hope that Mr. Palin’s technologies are expanded so that they become available to legal consumers in every jurisdiction.