I’m in the process of working with an attorney on some end-of-life stuff (wills, trusts, POA, etc). He came highly recommended so I signed an engagement with him, only to realize that he runs Windows and works off of Microsoft Word 97.
We’re deep into this and it’s becoming clear that I cannot just keep downloading his attachments, uploading to Google Docs, making modifications, downloading from Google Docs, and then sending it to him. I’ve got 20+ different file versions and I can’t keep track which one is which anymore. Apparently, he has “always worked like this” and doesn’t see a need for a more collaborative workspace. Either that or I’m just SUPER picky about my verbiage.
I thought about doing a shared dropbox but I get the sense that this wouldn’t be something he’d be willing to do, given that he’d have to sign up for dropbox, etc.
I was going to ask him if he felt comfortable going to a server that I fully controlled and working on the document there. My requirements:
- Document Editor that exports to Word (97 preferred, but docx is probably doable)
- multiple users with collaboration
- container based install that requires low resources, ideally less than 1GB of RAM to run.
- browser based UI
I would love to get some recommendations.


Walk away and find a not incompetent lawyer.
Send him docx files and tell him if he can’t work with modern files he needs to fix it. It’s like $30/mo for an office subscription. There’s no excuse for him being so cheap.