The CAPS (Computer Assisted Practice Systems) project began as a result of a conversation between Stan Neeleman and Larry Farmer at Brigham Young University Law School in 1975. While jogging, the two professors discussed the use of computers to support the delivery of legal services. As they spoke, they determined that "practice systems" seemed such an obvious use of computer technology that software must exist for exactly that purpose.

For the next two years they researched existing and planned software packages, including several with roots in the Cook County, Illinois, legal services organization and Jim Sprowl's excellent and innovative ABF Processor. By 1978, after using the various available software, and after developing a mail-merge type system of their own, the professors decided they were too limited by existing systems and determined to employ a computer programmer to "hard code" an estate planning system.

By 1979, they were joined by Marshall Morrise, who then programmed a will system on a DEC-10 computer. The newly programmed system was a great improvement over the word processing version prepared the year before. It was faster, easier to use, less paragraph oriented, and more substantive in its design. It included substantive helps that were similar to the current CAPS resources. The system was successfully tested at the newly formed Salt Lake City legal clinic of Parker, McKeon & McConkie.

The hard-coded system taught them some valuable lessons. Although it was very successful in a law practice, it had four distinct limitations. First, attorneys could not validate a system because they generally could not read computer code. Second, the system took too long (one full man-year) to code and test. Third, in its current form none of the coding was "transferable" to other potential hard-coded practice systems. And finally, most of the knowledge of how to really build one of these systems rested only with Marshall, and could not be easily transferred to others.

The Authoring Tool

The obvious next step was to create a computer "tool" that could speed-up and simplify the creation of practice systems. By 1980 Stan, Larry, and Marshall switched their efforts from building hard-coded systems to building an authoring tool. By 1983, the first version of a practice system tool was complete. During this phase of development, the tool was tested by a wide variety of law students and faculty who used the tool to write practice systems. Each new application brought enhancements to the CAPS tool.

A technical description of the development of the CAPS authoring tool over the years is too lengthy for this article. However, one aspect of the evolution of CAPS bears telling. One of the features of CAPS that has endured from its initial design to the present is its modular structure based on elements. The initial design, however, was very rigid, with a large set of element types, each of which could be used only in limited ways for narrowly defined functions. Through time and experience, CAPS programmers began to design more flexible elements and eliminate various element types. The long-term result of this process is a relatively small set of element types (18) that can be used to build an extensive range of applications.

By the end of 1984, the CAPS project was ready to be tested in various practice settings. In addition to their continued efforts to build experimental applications for interested groups, the CAPS project had set up affiliated research sites at law firms, in legal services offices, and at law schools. Some early research sites away from BYU Law School were Harvard Law School, the Denver firm of Holme Roberts & Owen, the Provo, Utah, office of Utah Legal Services, and the University of New Mexico. Later research sites included Greater Boston Legal Services and the University of Salzburg Law School.

Caps for the PC

By 1986, CAPS was a full-featured VAX development tool. This was the best platform because VAX computers were so prevalent in law firms and law schools. It became apparent in 1983, however, that CAPS would eventually need to be ported to the PC. The PC revolution was gaining momentum in 1986, and it was clear that PCs would eventually dominate the legal market. After much consideration, it was determined that a PC version of CAPS was a commercially viable project best developed independent of BYU Law School.

Marshall Morrise left the law school in 1987 to form Sirrus Systems, Inc. (now Capsoft Development). With Marshall's departure, the coding effort at the law school came to an end. The last release of CAPS on the VAX was made in October of 1987.

Redesigning CAPS and implementing it under DOS took nearly two years. Version 1.0 of CAPS Author, released in November, 1989, was superior to the VAX version in many ways: it was markedly faster and much easier to use. Most of the organizations that had served as test sites for the VAX version of continued as test sites for the PC version. CAPS Author and the runtime software, CAPS User, were continued to thrive. In 1993, a subset of CAPS Author was created to meet the need for document assembly software in small firms and solo practices. CAPS Personal, released in 1993, was priced at one-third the cost of CAPS Author and designed to meet this market need.

At about this time, the Windows operating system was gaining wide acceptance among law firms and a growing need to develop windows-based software led to the release of HotDocs in December 1993. HotDocs was a word processor add-on that used many of the functions of the word processor for creating templates and assembling customized documents from those templates. The first release of HotDocs coincided with the release of WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows. Soon, a version for Microsoft Word 6.0 was released. Version 2.0 and 3.0 of HotDocs soon followed and were made widely available through software channels -- resellers, catalogs and distribution houses.

Document automation software proved to be too misunderstood by the general software market, and in 1994, HotDocs was brought back in house for direct fulfillment, marketing and distribution. Market feedback also suggested that what customers really wanted were ready-made templates to assist them in their practice, so HotDocs 4.0 released with free or reduced price sets of HotDocs templates. California Judicial Council forms, federal court forms, Texas General Practitioner Library and others. By now HotDocs was working with WordPerfect 6.0a, 6.1, 7.0 and Word 95 and 97 as well as Lotus Ami Pro 3.0 and 3.1. The proliferation of HotDocs template sets caught the attention of legal publishers and in September 1997, Capsoft Development Corporation was purchased by Matthew Bender & Co., Inc. Nine months later, Matthew Bender & Co. was purchased by Reed Elsevier PLC.

At present, HotDocs has overtaken CAPS in the number of installations. CAPS systems and HotDocs templates are being used in many of the top 250 law firms in the nation. CAPS and HotDocs are being used in the legal departments of some of the largest U.S. corporations, and in several offices of the U.S. Government.

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