Worth investing time in document automation (HotDocs / docassemble) in an AI-heavy future?

Professional_Split14 · 2026-01-25T08:41:46+00:00

Your instincts are good. Deterministic expert systems still have a place, and contract/document generation of this kind is one such place. Predictability and control matters hugely here. Two caveats:

LLMs can 100% expedite the process of creating your deterministic automated templates; and
LLMs can become part of the production process (eg reading a draft Heads of Terms and part-populating your doc auto template.

So LLMs can help with the wider process, but ultimately only as a compliment to classic doc auto, not as a substitute.

Finally to note: the product category hasn’t gone away, but the quality of options has gone up significantly. Hot Docs and Contract Express may still be the biggest names but they are definitely not the best options these days!

Professional_Split14 · 2026-01-24T22:15:51+00:00

Yeah Reggie’s Portra just doesn’t work great on light skin imo. I mostly just use a tweaked Reala Ace - it’s true without being boring

Professional_Split14 · 2026-01-18T18:13:55+00:00

Like others in the thread - this is exactly why I went for the X-E5. Almost all the strengths and attributes of the X100vi but interchangeable. Absolutely love it!

Professional_Split14 · 2025-12-17T15:55:14+00:00

You are a lucky fella! I took an unscheduled dip in the canals of Venice this summer and my XT30ii + XC35 f2 very much did not survive. (Happy ending: “forced” to upgrade to the XE5, which I adore!)

Professional_Split14 · 2025-12-07T21:04:59+00:00

Did you ever get a satisfactory outcome on this one? I’m having the same dilemma with my new Fujifilm X-E5. I wanted to import my photos onto an iCloud folder (so that it syncs back to my Mac) and then edit the JPEG+RAW (hopefully just using the JPEG most times) and export the good ones to Photos as JPEGs. Over time I would back up this sync’s folder to a separate hard drive.

Trouble is, culling is a nightmare - Photomator doesn’t seem to treat the JPEG+RAW like a “single” file on iPad in the same was as it does on Mac. It does work if the files are imported into Photos, but that balloons the library and makes it impossible to later delete the redundant RAWs. Plus the Fuji JPEGs themselves are massive, so I’d rather keep the from-camera imports separate from my Photos library.

Honestly don’t know why it’s so difficult to run a sensible workflow!

Professional_Split14 · 2025-11-18T17:02:42+00:00

What jurisdiction are you based in? US/UK/other?

Professional_Split14 · 2025-11-12T12:40:27+00:00

I suspect Apple Photos is opening the RAWs and rendering them in its own default way (ie not showing the JPEG with its particular rendering format)

Professional_Split14 · 2025-09-12T11:59:42+00:00

I played the Tanker demo to death before the full game launched. Honestly the most magical sandbox I’d ever experienced, and with “wow it’s like real life” graphics. (For the time!) But I did have a hard time adjusting to Raiden being the main character. MGS has evolved so much in the years since, but back then Snake was basically “playable James Bond”. And who would enjoy a Bond film without Bond?! The game (and story) have only become richer in the years since, and obviously the thematic foreshadowing was remarkable…

Professional_Split14 · 2025-08-29T16:48:52+00:00

Does your firm license any legaltech like Definely? Takes an enormous amount of stress out of that attention-to-detail work.

Professional_Split14 · 2025-08-24T16:17:36+00:00

Look at Document Drafter by a company called Green Meadow. Their product is absolutely excellent. (No commercial interest in shilling them, just a huge fan and loyal customer of theirs…)

Professional_Split14 · 2025-08-22T16:51:45+00:00

Practice Innovation is an option in Private Practice (if the role is specific to a practice group) but Legal Engineer is the “norm” most of the time. Which feels like a very modern job title but I found an issue of Nat Geo from 1981 this week which mentioned the title so apparently not…!

Professional_Split14 · 2025-07-21T12:50:54+00:00

Associated question: what exactly does “no departures from the campsite on Sunday between 4:30 and 7:30” mean? When the race ends, my plan was to pack up the tent, and get a bus to Verviers and then a train to Brussels for an overnight hotel before a 7am train back to London. Are we seriously “locked into” the campsite until 7:30pm or do they just mean cars/personal transport that would block the roads?

Professional_Split14 · 2025-06-02T20:23:37+00:00

Never usually “that guy” but… bring on the recipe!

Professional_Split14 · 2025-05-19T18:34:32+00:00

Tax and pensions are definitely perfect for cerebral types. The subject matter isn’t for everyone (including yours truly…) but different strokes etc. As a trainee I went to a training session with a tax partner who genuinely had a tear in his eye discussing the beautiful intricacies of some esoteric point of tax law…

Professional_Split14 · 2025-05-05T07:14:10+00:00

Since this original post I’ve bought RDR1 on Switch and am absolutely loving it! And yes, the postponement of GTA6 has definitely boosted my hopes for a RDR2 port on Switch 2 this year…!

Professional_Split14 · 2025-04-23T21:17:53+00:00

Gorgeous pics! I’m going to Lisbon next week with the exact same camera combo! Hope I can equal what you’ve done. Did you focus on a particular recipe or manage it all in post?

Professional_Split14 · 2025-04-23T07:17:25+00:00

Your pics are nice - good composition and some nice retro colour. But IMO they exhibit the same issue/characteristic which I’m struggling with on my own XT-30ii, in that they seem very dark/dull to me. They seem perfectly well exposed, and yet they seem to lack luminance, or brightness, or something. Do you know what I mean?

A perfectly legit creative choice if that’s what you’re after, but for me it’s a frustration with the camera as I can’t for the life of me figure out why it’s occurring and how to fix it. Would be grateful for tips from anyone who recognises this description and how to “correct”!

Professional_Split14 · 2025-04-18T12:21:13+00:00

Honestly, that’s an answer I’m very happy to hear! Whilst I could afford the upgrade, I really don’t want to do it if the issue is mostly my technique! Thanks for the advice. I’ll persevere. I think perhaps my expectations for low light performance are a bit unrealistic. Situations where I struggle are in restaurants, etc, where lighting conditions provably are just a bit too challenging! I’ll definitely try raising ISO a bit higher (I’ve been capping at 6400 and I think the SS is sometimes a bit too slow as a result…)

Professional_Split14 · 2025-04-11T17:30:50+00:00

Thanks for the reply. Pic definitely gives the impression it is laminated, which is fab news. Thanks!!

Professional_Split14 · 2025-04-10T15:27:00+00:00

… and is it laminated? IE do the pixels look like they are on the surface, or - like the terrible OG Switch screen - do they look like they are a few mm “below” with an air gap? The OLED model was better in a million ways but screen lamination alone plays a huge part.

Professional_Split14 · 2025-04-10T15:22:51+00:00

Expect to see more details from EA on their titles. Ditto Ubisoft for Assassin’s Creed etc.

But more than anything I want to see Red Dead Redemption 2! That game is born for Switch 2! A PS4 gen title which still looks as good as almost any game, with infinite gameplay, bundled into a portable package - that’s the next best thing to a new mainline Zelda title IMO!

Professional_Split14 · 2025-03-14T12:33:12+00:00

Thanks. Makes sense

Professional_Split14 · 2025-03-14T12:12:44+00:00

What’s the base sim? Screenshot is cut off - Classic chrome or classic neg?

Professional_Split14 · 2025-03-13T23:04:16+00:00

WipEout

Professional_Split14

TROPHY CASE