I would like to take this opportunity to say a special thank you to people who have made significant contributions to the Standard Styles initiative.
- All the law firms who participated at the beginning with interviews, examples of their house style and discussions around what worked well and what didn’t
- The consultants who contributed their experience and suggestions.
- The people on the UKDEG sub-committee which worked through the options and came up with the naming convention.
- Sheila Quansah-Solomon. For your insightfulness, support, knowledge sharing, and for challenging our drafts to improve the result. (And for the time when we were too innovative for LITIG!)
- Christina Moneta and Mike Cavill for their tremendous support, commitment and enthusiasm to make Veale Wasbrough Vizards LLP the first firm to successfully go live with standard styles.
- Lexis-Nexis, and in particular John Hanratty who is not only a technical genius, but immediately “got it”. He initiated the project to use standard styles in a large collection of Lexis-Nexis precedent documents. John, you really helped put us on the map.
- Dentons, for allowing me the time to pursue this initiative, my team (who converted all the precedents) and the IT trainers (particularly Deborah Williams and Karen Connelly) who were instrumental in delivering the change to the firm.
- All the firms that subsequently adopted standard styles and encourage others to do so. Don’t forget to let us know when you implement it.
- To the Vendors and Consultants who continue to be supportive of the initiative and have helped firms to implement through template consultation and tools to help document conversion. Special mention should go Clare Waller, Nikki Pike, Angela Crossland and Ann Hemming.
- The contributors to the fantastically comprehensive guide for creating styles and numbering. This was mainly the members of the standard styles sub-committee, but particularly mention should go to Nikki Pike, Clare Waller, Julie Scofied, Andrea Bowyer and Ann Hemming. Marianne Armitage, a ray of sunshine, and for knocking it out of the park every time she presents on the topic.
- Finally to members of the DEG family who have talked about, implemented, encouraged others to adopt and continuing to support and explain the benefits of standard styles.
Thank you all
Kim Walton
Dentons & Chair of UKDEG Standard Styles Sub-committe