BTW, if you use content controls instead of legacy form fields you can make them so they either change to ordinary text when filled in or so that they cannot be deleted. The protections available are far more flexible. Word Content Controls

I am also a lawyer and use many legacy forms yet (why fix if not broken?). For my documents that go to others, I often use Mail Merge instead of legacy forms or content controls. When I fill in many documents for the same case, this gets basic information about the client and the situation from a data file. This gives me a working draft. I then unlink from the data source and edit.