Templates, Packages & Snippets

This page is for the person who authors the firm’s documents. Three building blocks, one relationship: packages bundle templates, and templates can embed snippets.

Templates

A template is a document with the variable parts marked. The editor is rich text plus the power tools:

Merge fields (Insert Field) pull data from the matter, its contacts, the firm, and related records, with formatting modifiers for case, dates, and currency.

Conditionals show or hide content based on the data: a paragraph that only appears when a field exists or equals a value, with an optional else.

Loops repeat a block for each item in a list, like one paragraph per client.

Page settings control paper size (Letter, Legal, A4), margins, and the base font.

The authoring Preview renders the template against sample data and surfaces warnings: fields that don’t exist, snippets that can’t be found. Warnings don’t block generation; the missing piece just renders blank. Treat a clean preview as your definition of done.

Snippets

A snippet is reusable content: the firm’s standard trust clause, the signature block. Insert it into any number of templates, and maintain the wording in one place.

The power comes with a warning label: republishing a snippet updates every template that uses it. The publish dialog tells you how many templates you’re about to touch. That’s exactly what you want for a firm-wide wording fix, and exactly what you want to know before you experiment.

Packages

A package is an ordered list of templates generated as one set, with page breaks between. Drag to reorder. A package can only be published when every template in it is published.

Publishing and Versions

All three follow the same lifecycle: edit as a draft, then publish to make it available for generation. Publishing snapshots a numbered version with an optional change note, and the version history shows who published what, when, and why.

Draft edits after publishing don’t affect anyone (“Published (has changes)”) until you publish again. Documents already generated keep the version they were generated from, forever.

Laminar vs. Firm Scope

Templates marked Laminar are maintained centrally and available to every firm. Your firm’s own templates are yours alone. You can duplicate a Laminar template to use as a starting point for your own variant.

Tips

Publish deliberately. Drafts are free; published versions reach everyone generating documents. The change note is one sentence that saves the next author an archaeology session.

Build snippets for anything you’d hate to fix in eleven places. If the wording appears in more than two templates, it’s a snippet.