Attorneys and clients frequently use the "Track Change" option in
Microsoft Word to facilitate editing a document. However, one
should use caution in submitting electronic copies of these
documents to opposing counsel. Modifications, comments, etc...
can often be recovered which may cause strategic blunders. In
the example below (click to enlarge), a client has inserted a
comment that he will accept a lesser royalty amount from a licensee.
If the attorney then save the file as "Final" the comment
does not immediately appear:
However, if we open this file up using a simple text editor we
see the comment still exists:
Luckily, Microsoft Word 2007 has an "cleanup" feature. Go to
the menu and select "Prepare" and then "Inspect Document." The
following dialog screen will come up:
After pressing the "Remove All" button we reopen the document in a
text editor and see that the comment is gone:
For more information on the ethics of mining meta data, see the
Florida Bar's opinion.