In today’s internet driven world many people find their legal document needs online. There are a range of options, including the fixed price fees we offer, that allow you to protect yourself and your business quickly.
One area that has risen in popularity over recent times is the templates for legal documents. These can be downloaded in seconds and paid for in an instant, leaving you with a legally binding piece of literature that should protect you as soon as it’s signed and witnessed.
Legal document templates are obviously cheaper and faster than bespoke document drafting as one template is constructed to fit all. They can be ideal for general insurances, small legal areas, such as tenancy agreements and partnerships yet as the requirement grows, they may not cover all.
The Benefits of Templates
- Tried and Tested Used by Many
- Easy to download
- Accessible within minutes
- Instant protection
- Customisable as long as the jargon stays in place
- The cheapest way to protect you and your business
It’s important to note though that templates are very general and if you are held under scrutiny, a law enforcer may find holes that you should have included to ensure the document was bespoke to your business.
Drafted Documents
Many people believe that bespoke drafted legal documents are very expensive. That they cost thousands of pounds and are only affordable by bigger businesses. In fact with our fixed priced fees drafted documents can save you a lot of expense in the future. Recently the news reported that the well-known celebrity Tommy Lee lost over £10 million pounds in a legal battle as the wording wasn’t quite right in the document.
Online Business
We recommend drafted documents for terms and conditions and privacy policies. By their nature these are lengthy as they must cover you for all eventualities. It’s sad but true that a disgruntled user will exploit the T and C’s, they will look for loopholes and they will have no hesitation in starting a lawsuit if they think you’ve missed something. Templates will cover the general use of your site yet they won’t be specific to your stock, services, delivery criteria and so on.
Also online people worry about their privacy being exploited. This is why a good privacy policy needs to be in place. A template will cover the generalisations such as the use of cookies but you may need it adapting to your own case. For example, you may send out newsletters via Mailchimp but the privacy policy via the template states you will not disclose email addresses to third parties. Although you’ve only given the addresses to your own Mailchimp account, a disgruntled customer could sue you for sharing information when they were led to believe you wouldn’t.
Quite simply they may take a little longer and they may be more expensive but you can’t get better protection than a drafted document.
Could Bespoke Document Drafting Pay for Itself?
Legal document templates are on the rise with people downloading these in an instant online. For as little as a few pounds you can have the protection you or your business needs within seconds. With these advantages is there still a place for bespoke document drafting? Shouldn’t everyone simply use templates and just hope for the best?
Unfortunately, although templates cover generalisations, they may be useful if you’ve less than five employees or they could be helpful for a short hold tenancy agreement, if you want to be bulletproof they’re unlikely to give you the full protection you crave.
You can of course adapt a template to suit your own needs but this is unadvisable without the help of a solicitor as if you make a mistake you risk making the whole document null and void. Hiring a solicitor to adapt a template is quite insulting. It’s embarrassing for you and in the end you will have paid the same amount as if you’d drafted a document from the start.
The Loopy Loopholes
In business drafted documents are essential. It’s a sad but true fact that the USA suing culture has hit Britain. Ten years ago we wouldn’t have dreamed of suing a box over a simple fall but today we all know that “where there’s blame there’s a claim”. This means businesses and individuals must be stringent with legally binding documents as the lawyers that promise the “no win no fee” service have an incredible knack for sniffing out loopholes you won’t even have noticed yourself.
Case Example: Let’s say you sell ice cream. You have a health and safety policy template that covers you for accidental spills. Now an employee slips on ice cream and you face a lawsuit. You may have detailed that any injury caused by accidental spills is the responsibility of the employee (as they should follow legislation of mopping, drying and placing a sign to warn others) but your no win no fee lawyer sees a loophole. Ice cream in its solid form can’t spill. Therefore your template doesn’t apply to trips and falls from the product you sell.
Many have lost thousands if not millions of pounds trying to save money with templates and in some cases they are enough but if you’re at risk of being sued, such as for health and safety, for privacy policies or terms and conditions, you need to ensure your documents are watertight.
The Lengthy T and C’s
Pop over to any well-known brand and have a flick through their terms and conditions. You’ll see how lengthy they are. They not only protect against big lawsuits they protect against the everyday almost absolving a company of all responsibility.
Claims such as “we will not be held responsible for…” “We reserve the right to…” “Our refund policy clearly states that…” These statements although innocent looking when you scan through the T and Cs and tick the box to say you agree stop the company been taken to court instantly.
With a drafted document you’ll be able to explore every angle to use the knowledge of a solicitor and tap into his expertise. Your solicitor will present you with worst case scenarios you hadn’t thought of but were thankful he or she brought them up.
In any area of law where you need to be protected it’s worth calculating how much you could lose should your legal document be challenged and then fail to stand up in court. Then see if the investment in bespoke document drafting is worth it.