A friend of mine is in the midst of acquiring a public shell company. He was referred to a law firm with substantial experience in the area that claims expertise.
By actual count there were more than 20 material errors in the “final” documentation. The firm describes them as merely typos, the kind of error that can creep into documents without becoming obvious enough to catch. Things like the name of the client and purchaser, the state domicile of the target corporation; just minor items.
How long will it be until lawyers, and their malpractice insurers, consider documentation errors unacceptable, below the threshold of professional standards?
We’re particularly sensitive to this, of course, because we’ve always regarded “cut and paste” as TheFormTool’s largest competition, a legacy practice that should have gone out with thermal paper fax machines. Even giving the matter the benefit of every doubt, I’ll wager that within five years cut and paste will be considered unprofessional and unacceptable.
It’s an ethical violation of the general ABA Rules of Professional conduct – Competency comes to mind.