Creating a Fillable PDF Form - WRITTEN BY: PRESENTER: Rochelle D. Washington Rochelle D. Washington:@attywashington - American Bar Association
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Creating a Fillable PDF
Form
WRITTEN BY:
Rochelle D. Washington
PRESENTER:
Rochelle D. Washington:@attywashington
March 9, 2018
Using Fillable PDF Forms for Your Law Firm
If you are not already using fillable forms in your practice you are certainly losing time and
money on unnecessary electronic data management and probably making mistakes, too. Check
out 9 Reasons Why Innovative Lawyers Use Online Intake Forms. Whether you are a small firm
owner or employed by a firm, every lawyer should use fillable forms for efficiency and
organization. There are numerous products and services available to assist you with the
development of forms for your practice and Adobe Acrobat is just one easy and common, way
to create them. Incorporating PDF fillable forms will allow you to create efficient work flows
and to improve client interaction by making it easier to collect and extract information. The
end user or recipient of your fillable forms need only have Adobe Reader, version 9 or higher,
installed and a copy can be easily downloaded for free.
Versions of Adobe Acrobat
There are different versions, both Pro and Standard, of Adobe Acrobat and not all of them allow
you to create fillable forms. The latest versions are Adobe Acrobat Pro 2017, Adobe Acrobat
Standard 2017 and Adobe Acrobat DC. Acrobat DC is complete with a cloud services solution
allowing users to access their information from anywhere and to collaborate seamlessly across
devices. Please note, that Adobe has a Support Lifecycle of 5 years starting from the general
availability date of the product. Some previous versions set forth below are still in use but
Adobe strongly recommends that customers update to the latest versions of Adobe Acrobat
Reader DC and Adobe Acrobat DC.
Creating and using fillable forms can reduce errors and improve client service. For example,
fillable forms can help automate the process of creating blank letter heads, legal documents
and other standard templates. Here is how you can use fillable PDF forms in your practice.
1. Intake/Prospective Clients: You can use fillable forms for intake and contact information
and make them available on-line for easy access. You can design your forms and include
questions to gather pertinent contact and case viability information. The forms can be
made available to the clients via your website or via a secure portal. This could eliminate
or significantly reduce the necessity for you or an administrative assistant to manually
take an intake questionnaire or for your client to have to complete a packet upon arrival
to your office. Moreover, it keeps you or your staff from having to duplicate entries and
make mistakes while doing so. Collecting this information from potential clients allows
you to vet the matter and perform a conflicts check before you speak with the potential
client saving you time and money.
2. Information Gathering: Once you decide to take on a case the details and factual
information you need to collect can be obtained by way of an electronic fillable form.
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March 9, 2018
3. Documents: You can create fillable templates for pleadings, standard letters (in
conjunction with a mail merge), contracts, fee agreements, and financial forms.
4. Client Surveys: Creating a fill-able form for surveys is a great way to obtain client
feedback. You can include the form as a link in an email to make it easy for a client to
reply.
ADOBE VERSIONS AND CAPABILITIES
1. Adobe Reader
Adobe reader is limited in functionality. It will allow you to view, navigate, and print
PDF forms, include
ng the form field data. Adobe Reader also allows you to search forms and fill fields
within a PDF from. However, Adobe Reader will not allow you to save changes to a PDF
form. You can be given rights or permissions using Adobe Reader that will allow you to
save forms and data locally, fill and submit forms online and distribute forms to others
for review and comment, as well as add digital signatures.
2. Adobe Acrobat X
In both Acrobat 9 and Acrobat X, you can create interactive forms that other Acrobat or
Reader users can fill in and submit.
3. Adobe Acrobat Standard
Adobe Acrobat Standard can do all that Adobe Reader can do and more. This version
allows you to export and save PDF forms in another file formation called Forms Data
Format (FDF). FDF is a text file consisting of only the data exported from a fillable PDF
form fields.
4. Acrobat Professional
Professional versions of Adobe have all of the capabilities of those aforementioned.
Professional versions allow you to create Adobe PDF form fields. Form fields can be
created from an existing document you already use in practice or you can create a
fillable form from scratch.
SECURITY WHEN COLLECTING CLIENT DATA
The ability to collect client information from PDF forms and store client data in the cloud has
changed the way lawyers communicate and collaborate. It does not change the lawyer’s duty to
ensure that client data is protected. Arguably, included in this responsibility is the lawyer’s duty
to select a reputable and secure cloud computing service provider. Proper vetting of a cloud
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March 9, 2018
computing vendor, in addition to implementing internal safeguards, could be a lawyer’s ethical
obligation. Lawyers should demand transparency from their cloud provider of choice and avoid
vendors that refuse to provide detailed information on their security programs and measures.
The burden could be on you, the lawyer, to inquire into the “qualifications of policy makers,
architects, coders and operators; risk-control processes and technical mechanisms; and the
level of testing that’s been done to verify that service and control processes are functioning as
intended, and that vendors can identify unanticipated vulnerabilities.”1 A lawyer’s ethical
obligation to safeguard client data in most jurisdictions extends to staff of the firm. If this is the
case in your jurisdiction, it is also a lawyers’ responsibility to ensure that all staff is competent
and properly trained in the use of technology and security measures necessary to protect client
information when used in the law office.2
If you are not using a secure client portal or not properly using a reputable and secure cloud
services such as OneDrive.com, Dropbox.com or Citrix Sharefile.com to share and store
documents, you could be putting your client's information at risk. It is very easy for you to make
a mistake in handling client data if you do not understand the security measures you should
have in place and why. For example, to minimize the risk when sharing links using a file sharing
service, consider limiting the amount of time the recipient can access the link and use dual
factor authentication, which requires the typical log-in credentials and an additional verification
to access a file or document. I highly recommend that you not use free versions of any of these
services. If you read the terms of service for free versions, even from reputable vendors, you
will find they are less likely to have optimum security measures in place for your data and they
may also limit your ownership rights to your client data. Many of you may already use
Microsoft's cloud product, Office 365, which can include for a nominal fee, OneDrive for
document storage and sharing. Microsoft is a reputable company, the most commonly used
platform and still considered the industry standard. If you are uncertain or not comfortable
with selecting a cloud service or provider, then I would recommend using Office 365 for both
Mac and PC users.
So, what does one look for in a cloud service provider? A cloud computing vendor or SaaS
provider should be:
A company with a reputation for excellent physical and network security;
A company that provides multiple-levels of redundancy, or simply stated, make sure
there are multiple copies of your data to prevent loss in the case of a single disk or
server failure
A company that backs up data and stores across multiple geographic locations;
1 Jon Brodkin, Gartner: Seven Cloud-Computing Security Risks, InfoWorld, (July 2008),
http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/gartner-seven-cloud-computing-security-risks-853.
2 Jack Newton, The Ethics and Security of Cloud Computing, ILTA White Paper (2010).
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March 9, 2018
A company that is able to delete a file across all the redundant servers in the cloud
and ensure that the information is deleted from the cloud storage banks.3
Whether a lawyer stores paper documents in a warehouse or digital documents on -third party
servers to allow for file sharing and collaboration, the same ethical obligation to ensure that
confidential client data remains protected still applies.4 Here are a few questions you can ask
your potential cloud-based service provider:
1. Who owns the servers that will house your data?
2. Where will your data be located?
3. How is your data backed up?
4. How is your data encrypted?
5. Inquire about Data availability and extraction?5
There are a variety of books and resources available through the ABA to educate lawyers on the
use of cloud computing and the security issues implied in its use. If the lawyer is uncertain as to
their competency in technology when screening cloud vendors, then it may be that lawyer’s
ethical obligation to enlist an information technology professional to assist in making a proper
assessment. Every lawyer should check with their jurisdiction's rules and opinions on the use of
cloud services and the confidentiality of client information.
Resources:
ABA Issues Major Ruling on Ethics of Email and Electronic Communications:
https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2017/05/aba-issues-major-ruling-ethics-email-electronic-
communications.html
Encryption Made Simple for Lawyers:
https://www.americanbar.org/publications/gp_solo/2012/november_december2012privacyan
dconfidentiality/encryption_made_simple_lawyers.html
Legal Technology Resource Center:
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/departments_offices/legal_technology_resources/resou
rces/cloud_computing.html
WHAT’S IN A FORM?
There are various types of PDF form fields for a document created with Adobe Acrobat.
3Stephanie Crawford, Are My Files Really Safe if I Store Them In the Cloud?, How Stuff Works, (Aug. 2011),
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing/files-safe-in-the-cloud.htm.
4 Nicole Black, Cloud Computing for Lawyers 85 (2012).
5 See id. at 85-91(listing security considerations and questions to ask cloud based providers); See also id. at 101-2
(Cloud-Computing Service Questionnaire).
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March 9, 2018Text Field Allows the user to enter text such as
name, address or phone number
Check Box Gives the user a yes or no option for
individual items. You are not limited to two boxes but
instead you can create as more boxes and the user will
be able to select as many or as few of the options as
they wish
Radio Button Gives the user a group of choices
but the user can only select one item from the
group.
List Box Displays a list of options the user can
select
Combo Box Allows the user either choose an
item from a pop-up menu or type in a value
Button Initiates a change on the user’s
computer, such as opening a file, playing a
sound, or submitting data to a web server.
Digital Signature Field allows the user to
electronically sign a PDF document with a digital
signature
Barcode Encodes the input form selected
fields and displays it as a visual pattern that can
be interpreted by decoding software or
hardware
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March 9, 2018Creating Fillable Form from Existing Document (this example uses Adobe Acrobat XI Pro)
1. Select Create Form
2. Select From Existing Document Next
3. Choose your file
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March 9, 20184. Select Open Continue (This will open your document in the Editing Mode and
automatically detect existing fields)
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March 9, 20185. For fields that do not auto-fill:
Select Add New Field
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March 9, 20186. Select Text Field (or any other field of your choice)
7. Drag and Drop Field to the location of your choice within the document
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March 9, 2018Create a Fillable PDF Form from Scratch:
1. Select Create Form From Scratch or Template (templates are a great start).
2. If you create your form from scratch you will need a little creativity of your own. You
must be clear on how you want your form to look and what information you want to
obtain and/or extract. From there the steps will include drag and drop using the form
fields of your choosing.
More Resources on Creating PDF Fillable Forms:
Convert Existing Forms to Fillable PDF’s
Creating a Fillable Form from Scratch Using Adobe Acrobat (Video)
Creating Fillable Forms Using Adobe Acrobat DC (video)
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March 9, 2018You can also read
