Law practices, with anything privileged taken out

A great deal of a practice's value lives in material written for its own lawyers:

• Templates and precedent banks
• Training material and checklists
• Internal research and know-how notes
• Intake, staffing and workflow records
• Billing narratives with every identifier taken out

Anything privileged is stripped before the copy is made. Client matters can stay out entirely, and many practices never include them. What, if anything, fits your professional duties is for your practice and its counsel to decide. We do not offer legal advice on it.

The originals stay in your systems, and no one asks for a password. Buyers license nothing but the prepared copy you signed off on, and any practice group or set of templates can be held back.

Placeholders take the place of client, party, attorney and staff names in what stays, as well as matter numbers and any other identifiers. You, and your counsel if you like, review a sample before anything is shared.

Ask for the estimate, which never needs a client name or a document. Treat the short call as a way to get your counsel's answers: which systems are on the table, the way placeholders are applied and how the sample is checked. Until you approve, you can stop whenever you like. Whether to proceed stays with the practice from start to finish, and it costs nothing either way.

What a buyer gets is a prepared version of approved internal documents. One example is a precedent together with the drafting notes on when each clause applies, with every identifier swapped out. Such documents show how skilled attorneys think, which is seldom found in public text. Privileged material is removed, client matters can stay out completely, and your document management system is never accessed by anyone outside the practice. The sample can go to your counsel first.