Corporation Kit – Should You DIY or Hire a Lawyer?
By Greg Lam on March 22, 2011 in diy or go pro, sections2 Comments
DIY OR GO PRO
This post is part of a series of videos that seeks to answer the questions, "Should I do it myself, can I do it myself, how do I do it myself, should I hire a professional, and how do I choose a professional?". To see more in this video series, visit the DIY or GO PRO page.
Should you use template legal documents, such as a corporation kit or business kit, or should you hire a lawyer?
I video interviewed business lawyer, Eric Rutledge, about those diy legal kits and heard about the potential pitfalls of these kits.
The videos below are the same. If you have a slow Internet connection, I suggest going with Youtube as it tends to do better, otherwise go with Vimeo as I find the quality higher.
Corporation Kit – Should You DIY or Hire a Lawyer?
DIY Legal Kits
Here are some links to DIY legal kits. I’ve never used these services myself before so can’t personally recommend them. They may work for you, they may not, I couldn’t tell you.
- Simply Legal – Canadian
- Legal Zoom – American
- Corporation Centre – Canadian
To me, these kits and templates seem like a good option for small companies starting up. Especially when you are strapped for cash.
Eric personally recommends against using kits and templates. I can understand his point of view. If Eric is seeing someone it is most likely that they have a problem that a kit or template couldn’t help out with, or that a kit or template created a problem. He probably doesn’t meet too many people who have successfully used kits and templates.
Also, if I was a trained lawyer with years of experience, why would I even suggest that a kit or template could do the job that I could? A kit or template most likely can’t.
However, I still have that side of me that believes that for certain situations, for people with the right skills and knowledge, kits and templates are a completely viable way of handling some legal matters yourself.
How do you know if you’ve done it right?
This is the big thing. If you don’t know law and have a hard time reading, let alone the implications of legal documents, how do you know if your DIY law forms have been done right?
You probably don’t.
You do have a couple options though, free and inexpensive ones at that. Some lawyers give free 30 minute or 1 hour consultations. Double-check with them to see if what you’re about to do, or what you’ve done, is good.
There are also lawyer referral services where you can pay a discounted rate for the first half hour or hour.
Lawyer Referral Services
- Click here for the lawyer referral service in Canada
- Click here to visit the American Bar Association’s site. You can find a lawyer referral service in your area by clicking on the appropriate state. This link actually took me about 10 minutes to find! I was beginning to think there wasn’t a lawyer referral service in the US. So, if you’re searching online for a lawyer referral service, make sure to go to that link as that is the official site of the American Bar Association.
More Lawyer Stuff
This is part 2 of a video interview with Eric Rutledge. Please view part 1 to see Eric talk about why and how to hire a small business lawyer.
If you’re looking to get in touch with Eric, here’s what you find on the Canada Lawyer list.
I'm always wary of the DIY kits, especially when the service promises "review" of your filings. This seems to make people think they're going to have a lawyer look over their forms and make sure everything is correct, when most often the reviewer is only looking for misspellings and typos. Unless you're speaking personally with an attorney licensed in your state, you're probably not getting professional legal advice.
That's a good point. Who's doing the review? Is it a lawyer? Good questions to ask if you use a DIY kit with a review.