When starting a complex matter, there's one thing a lawyer needs to confirm before any document can be drafted: who's involved, what role they play, and how they connect to everything else.
A borrower who is also a mortgagor. A guarantor who is also a defendant. A security property tied to three separate loans. A beneficiary who inherits two assets and acts as executor.
If those connections are clear and captured, the document populates. If they're not, the drafting stops or worse, carries on with gaps.
Until now, Smarter Drafter could store structured data about each party individually. What it couldn't do was connect them.
That changes with Linked Records .
Linked fields: A new way to connect records
Builders can now add a new field type, the Linked field, to any form section. It lets you point one entity at another: connect a Customer to a Loan, link a Security Property to a Mortgagor, associate a Beneficiary with an Asset.
When a drafter completes the form, they select from records already entered earlier in the matter. No re-keying. No duplicate data entry. The connection is made and stored.
Roles assigned, not re-entered
A party entered once can take on multiple roles across the same matter. A Customer becomes a Borrower in one section, a Mortgagor in another, a Defendant if the matter goes to litigation. Each role is assigned so the underlying record stays consistent and the document reflects every position that party holds.
Relationships travel into the document
A new Linked Records tab in the Word add-in surfaces every related record type for use in templates. Builders can nest repeating content controls like a Loan containing Borrower or Property containing Mortgagor, so that every instance of one entity automatically pulls in its connected counterparts.
One loan, all its borrowers. One property, all its mortgagors. One beneficiary, every asset they inherit.
Bi-directional by default
Relationships work in both directions without any additional setup. If a Defendant is linked to a Property, builders can query it either way: every Defendant tied to a given Property, or every Property tied to a given Defendant. The connection only needs to be created once.
Legal matters are not flat. Parties overlap. Roles repeat. A security property can be cross-collateralised across three loans. A person can be a borrower, a guarantor, and a defendant in the same file.
The old workaround was to capture those connections manually or to leave them out. Both created risk.
With Linked Records , the form captures the connections at the point of data entry. The template reads them at the point of drafting. Confirmed inputs produce automatic outputs. That's where drafting time is recovered.
Add a linked field to any section that needs to reference another. Configure it to point to a prior section, assign a role to the selected record, and define which entity it links to in the current section.
Read the supporting help article: Understanding linked records
When a drafter fills out the form, they see a list drawn from records already entered. They select. The relationship is created.
In the Word add-in, open the Linked Records tab. Add a repeating content control for the parent entity. Nest a second one for the related entity. The document will repeat every parent instance and, inside it, every connected record. Read the supporting help article: Building a form with linked records
Linked Records are the foundation for how complex matters get drafted in Smarter Drafter.
Phase 2 will extend this further by storing relationships at the matter level for reuse across subsequent forms, and adding tighter control over which records are eligible to fill which roles.
The principle stays the same: get the inputs right, and the outputs take care of themselves.