In his post entitled “Legal writing isn’t what it shoud be #4″ — as its title implies, the fourth in a series of such posts — UT Law Professor Wayne Schiess  of Wayne Schiess’s legal-writing blog gives four drawbacks to relying on forms.  Setting the stage:

Why do lawyers use forms (or “templates” or “precedent documents” as some prefer to call them) ?

To save time, to save money, to give clients a better value, and to take advantage of previous documents that have worked.

So forms are a necessity. No lawyer can get by in a typical practice today without them. The time and expense that would result from writing everything from scratch would be enormous. But forms have at least four drawbacks.

I don’t think the drawbacks he cites are much of a worry if you use common sense.  Prior briefs can provide an excellent starting point for research on an issue I’ve previously briefed.  But I would never dream of simply cutting and pasting. 

A fresh look at the research, writing and analysis is always necessary.  Do I need to go further?  Is the research up-to-date?  Is it really applicable to my present facts and legal situation?  Can the writing be improved?  Does the writing style fit my current project?  Ask these kinds of questions, and I think you’ll safely avoid the pitfalls Professor Schiess describes.