Hephaistos

Overview

Hephaistos is a suite of software applications, which facilitate the drafting and revision of text documents. It is primarily designed for the use by legal professionals, essentially attorneys and in-house counsels. More generally, in the context of work pertaining to legal-type documents (e.g., year-end reports of companies) it is also an appropriate tool for a broader group of users beyond the said professionals.

Hephaistos is a Office Add-In for Microsoft Word. When applying users thus stay in their customary work environment within the “look and feel” they are used to. Hephaistos thereby seamlessly fits into the established work routines of users. Furthermore, it adapts common work flows and integrates into them. It is designed to address typical tasks with which the targeted user groups are confronted.

Scope of Application

When drafting and revising documents legal professionals as well as users of other areas who are involved in the draft and revision of (legal-type) documents have to attend to the correctness of such documents’ content and form, but also have to secure their technical and editorial accuracy. While other software solutions address the needs as regards content (e.g., new legal tech applications) and form (e.g., Microsoft Word) they do not or only to a limited extent comprise of applications regarding technical and editorial tasks. Hephaistos supports users in respect of core technical and editorial work that arises in the course of the draft and revision of documents. Not only Hephaistos assists in preventing technical/editorial errors, but it also assumes and facilitates further typical technical tasks. Thus, it reduces cost as well as financial and dispute risks. Furthermore, it decreases the volume of low-profile tasks that require only limited professional qualification and expertise and are considered onerous.

The scope of such technical/editorial work encompasses, in particular,

• the proper use of definitions,
• the accuracy of definitions,
• the semantic consistency of text,
• the prevention of duplicate and contradictory provisions,
• the extraction (not summary) of content relating to a special area to allow for a more efficient revision,
• the simultaneous work on identical/similar documents.

Given its technical nature such work is well suited to be performed or facilitated by a software solution.

Frequently, professionals address such work in the surrounds of considerable time constraints, under cost pressure and while attending other tasks at the same time which may distract their focus. These factors are prone to resulting in errors which in turn may result in

• liability risks for the professionals as well as their clients,
• inaccuracies, uncertainty of interpretation and disputes,
• additional cost including due to the need for remediation.

Above all, these technical/editorial tasks require a non-negligible amount of users’ limited time while contributing (presumably) low added value as compared to what is considered high-profile work.

Hephaistos mitigates the respective exposure in that it assists users in

• discovering and preventing errors,
• remedying errors,
• saving time by assuming onerous tasks that require limited professional qualification and expertise,
• freeing up time for other, particularly real high-profile work,
• being able to increase work focus.

This all leads to an enhancement of the quality of work products.

To be able to use Hephaistos, you need a enterprise license. We offer different licenses, depending on the features you choose. Please contact us using the contact form on our homepage.