We tend to toss around terms like ‘forms’ and ‘templates’ as if they were interchangeable. In fact, these documents serve unique purposes. Here’s a short glossary of how we use these common terms here at GPL.
The first set of terms relate to resources often used to develop automated workflows. The terms after the table relate to mechanisms of automated workflows.
Templates
A template is your firm’s standardized starting point for common matters. It isn’t meant for every edge case, but rather to handle the majority of your clients’ needs efficiently. Templates capture your best-practice language and logic, ensuring consistency. They include your preferred starter text along with optional text, conditionally inserted based on matter data. For instance, specific trust provisions might appear only if the client has minor children. The primary benefits are efficiency and standardization. In sum, templates are situated directly within typical firm matters.
Checklists
Checklists, on the other hand, broadly govern matter types within a practice area (e.g., all the things you should think about when drafting an estate plan). The tricky part of checklists is that they are very often presented as templates with numerous, and often subtle or minor conditional statements. If you find yourself building a large questionnaire that tries to account for every possible variable, you’re likely trying to automate a checklist, not a document template. A good option for checklists includes evaluating (or reevaluating from time to time) your templates and their output. They shouldn’t be confused for templates themselves as they are governed more broadly by practice and ethical concerns, not your business interests.
Forms
Forms are the static paperwork required by a court, agency, or other authority. Their main benefit is that they are pre-approved and their use is often mandatory. In addition, form elements like checkboxes clearly demonstrate an affirmative selection of one option and the intentional neglect of other options. And like templates, forms can be automated or included in automated sets, so you don’t have to re-enter the same data across multiple documents.
The downside, of course, is that forms are often inelegant documents. The Federal Civil Cover Sheet, for example, includes all 90+ nature of suit codes. Fields are often too small to insert required text and attachments are required to complete many forms.. Forms effectively serve a tribunal’s efficient administration of justice. They tend to serve the tribunal first, the client and firm secondarily.
Prior Work Product
Many practitioners treat prior work product as a template by simply performing a ‘find and replace.’ This isn’t entirely ineffective. In fact, it might even get you 90% of the way home. But what text was added for this matter? What text was omitted? How was the prior work product tailored to accommodate the matter? Prior work product isn’t a starting point, it’s the end point.
The primary benefit of prior work product (other than the benefits it conferred on the client) is that it represents a valid output for your automated templates. If you understand the conditions which generated the prior work product, work product serves as a good method to test your automations as you systematize portions of your practice.
Here’s a summary table for reference:
| Document Type | Short Description | Difference from Template | Key Benefit |
| Templates | Your firm’s standardized starting point for common, repeatable matters. | N/A | Efficiency and standardization within your firm’s typical matters. |
| Checklists | A tool governing all considerations for practice areas. | Governs broad practice area concerns, not a specific business need. They are for evaluation, not document generation. | Evaluating and quality-controlling your templates and their output. |
| Forms | Static, official paperwork required by an authority (e.g., a court or agency). | Serves a tribunal’s needs first, not the firm’s. It’s externally mandated and rigid. | Pre-approved by an authority; clearly demonstrates affirmative selections. |
| Prior Work Product | A completed document from a previous, similar matter. | It’s an end point (a finished document), not a standardized starting point. | Serves as a valid output (‘answer key’) to test new automations against. |
These terms are nearly self-explanatory but worth a moment of our time:
Workflow
A legal workflow is a clear, defined, and repeatable sequence of steps. It’s a well-defined process that outlines how a specific task or matter is handled from start to finish; essentially, a roadmap for processes like client intake and onboarding, document generation and review; billing, and more. Automated workflows reduce friction within well-defined law firm operations and so they may or may not apply document templates or other items defined above. In addition, workflows often deploy more than a single application. For example, a workflow may use one application to generate a document, another to send it out for review, and another to approve and sign the documents.
Questionnaire / Interview
We use these terms interchangeably to refer to the questions presented to persons completing a workflow, especially document automation workflows. Interviews typically include various field types including text, single and multi-select, dates, file uploads, dropdown, and many others. You may be familiar with these from consumer form builder tools (e.g., Constant Contact, Google Forms). These are indeed ‘forms’ but for the sake of distinguishing the mandated court forms described above from the much more adaptable, automated forms described here, we use ‘interview’ or ‘questionnaire’ rather than ‘form.’
Legal Products
Legal products are automated templates you package and offer directly to clients, often for a flat fee. This allows your firm to generate new revenue by offering affordable, scalable services and effectively compete with DIY legal websites like LegalZoom or Trust&Will. The key is that you remain in control, as you can still require a final attorney review before any documents are delivered.