LexisNexis recognizes those employees who make a difference. Marshall Morrise is recognized as a Difference Maker for his part in the creation of HotDocs and the software’s role in helping Wills for Heroes create wills for first responders.
What is your job title?
Senior Director, Product Development, Global Solutions Development.
Could you share a little bit of your background and how you wound up where you are today?
As an undergraduate computer science student at Brigham Young University, I became acquainted with Larry Farmer, a professor at the J. Reuben Clark Law School. In the mid-70s, Larry and another professor, Stan Neeleman, began working on a project to put computer power into the hands of lawyers. At the time, computers were used for back-office functions like billing but practicing attorneys didn’t use computers themselves. Through their research, Larry and Stan determined that automating the drafting of rule-based documents would be a fruitful path to pursue.
In January 1979, Larry hired me to program a system for generating estate planning documents, which was Stan’s area of specialty. Over the course of the next eight years, we created a computer application which we called CAPS (Computer Assisted Practice Systems) that allowed non-programmers to provide English-like instructions for creating any kind of routine legal document.
In August 1987, the dean of the law school invited me to take our work into the private sector. By then, I had completed my bachelor’s degree, as well as a master’s degree in instructional science, so I was excited to see if I could use my computer and instructional training to create commercial software. With the university’s encouragement, I obtained venture funding, formed Capsoft Development Corporation and brought on two programmers as my partners (one of them was Brad Halversen, who leads the HotDocs software engineering group today).
After several years of producing and distributing a PC-based version of the CAPS software (which was expensive and fairly complicated), we decided to create something anyone could afford and use. We called it “HotDocs.” HotDocs was first released in the fall of 1993 as a $49 add-on to WordPerfect 6.0 (their first Windows version). As time went on, our focus on CAPS diminished and we turned our full attention to HotDocs.
In September 1997, after 10 years of independent operation, Capsoft was purchased by Matthew Bender & Company, which was itself purchased by Reed Elsevier ten months later. I have managed the HotDocs development team since that time. I welcomed stepping down as CEO of Capsoft, as I had grown tired of the business grind and wanted to return to hands-on software development.
What is HotDocs and how did it come about?
HotDocs, as an idea, was as an outcome of our work with the CAPS software. One of our developers — who happens to be my younger brother, Matt Morrise, and who is now lead developer on the LexisNexis Patent Optimizer product — thought we could leverage the capabilities of word processors to produce something simple yet powerful.
Using HotDocs, a legal professional can turn a Word, WordPerfect or PDF document into a HotDocs template for creating similar documents for clients. Templates contain markup that identifies where variable information (names, dates, amounts, calculations) should be inserted. Templates also include rules that determine which paragraphs or sentences should be included in, or excluded from, the final document, depending on the client’s needs.
The desktop HotDocs software is the engine behind the automated forms that are part of LexisNexis Total Practice Advantage. The server software is used by many large law firms and large corporations and also by LexisNexis internally to produce outside author contracts and sales contracts.
(Editor’s note: To see a brief HotDocs demo, visit www.hotdocs.com and click the red button titled “90-Second HotDocs Overview.”)
Anthony Hayes, Partner, Nelson Mullins, says that without you and HotDocs – there would be no Wills for Heroes.
I suppose it’s true that if I had not started Capsoft, there would be no HotDocs and, without HotDocs, there would be no Wills for Heroes, since it was HotDocs in use at Anthony’s firm that prompted him to start the venture after 9/11. But without the original idea, which wasn’t mine, and without the dedicated effort of dozens of others, including developers, business, marketing and sales people, HotDocs would not have survived.
Chief among these “others” is Brad Halversen, with whom I have now worked side-by-side for over 20 years. In large measure, it has been his technical savvy that has kept HotDocs going. But without the overall team, we couldn’t have succeeded. To give you an idea of how committed our team is – of the six programmers who currently work on HotDocs, the newest to the HotDocs team has been with us 11 years.
What do you like most about your job?
I like to design software. I like working with end users to understand their needs and to produce something that fulfills those needs.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Before I married my wife, my then-future father-in-law, Harry Hall, said to me, “Life is way too short to be mad at people or to hold grudges.” He was right.
Any closing thoughts?
Always assume the best about others; make them prove you wrong.