Drafting Your Own Contracts
Doesn't Have To Be Expensive Or Complicated

Did you know that most progressive law firms use powerful software authoring tools to automate the arduous task of contract drafting?

Would you like to save time, money, and aggravation by using similar tools to draft your own marketing contracts?

Here's how you can do it.

In the past, most entrepreneurs readily accepted the notion that fitting a contract to their business needs required an attorney to draft from scratch.  You're familiar with the process... it's similar in concept to going to a tailor for a tailor-made suit -- lots of discussion and iterations. Assuming the document is delivered when promised, the time and money involved is often considerable. And what's more, the attorney controls the entire process.

Now, powerful, automated drafting tools are empowering entrepreneurs to write a first draft of business contracts that closely fit their business needs.

Does this mean that you should not seek legal review? In most cases you should seek legal review, just as you would have the tailor in a ready-made clothing retailer make minor alterations to a suit that you choose off the rack. Your attorney should be employed to give advice and to tailor the final document for a good fit, but not to engage in the time consuming and expensive task of creating the first draft.

In order to get a good fit with an electronic form or template, you must follow the advice of the knight guarding the Holy Grail in the Indiana Jones movie -- "choose wisely". The reason is that forms and templates do not provide the logic which links alternate clauses to the agreement.  They may provide a few alternate clauses, but you must decide which to use, and even more critical, you must know how to make these decisions.

Because forms and templates lack the logic which links alternate clauses, document flexibility and the number of meaningful document variations are limited.  In many cases, substantial background knowledge is required. Hence, they are best suited for relatively simple contracts if non-lawyers are using them.

Online contract drafting services utilizing rule-based document assembly systems are not as readily available as forms or templates due to the relatively high cost to develop such systems. However, the benefits in terms of flexibility and ease-of-use are truly significant.

Online contract drafting services incorporate a database of alternate clauses, often numbering in the range of 100 or more for a single document that will average only 20-30 clauses when assembled. The key to these online drafting services is the built-in logic that asks the user a series of questions -- then selects the appropriate clauses from the database in response to the answers and assembles and formats the final document.

Online contract drafting services utilizing rule-based document assembly techniques actually do all the heavy lifting for you, easily and quickly.  Flexibility often goes into the hundreds of document variations for relatively simple agreements, and to the hundreds of thousands of variations for relatively complex agreements. That's why you get near-custom results with rule-based, online contract drafting services as distinguished from relatively archaic forms.

Our ContractMaker online drafting service uses rule-based document assembly for the results described above. Another advantage of our service is that the same logic that determines which of my carefully clauses to pull from the database for the assembly of your document can be used to determine which documents are required for a given situation where a package of documents is required. The best example is website legal compliance. There are at least 8 different documents that may be required for a legally compliant website, but the combinations of documents differ from site to site. Which documents does your site really need? I've created a document drafting Memo as part of our MySiteDocs services that takes users step-by-step through the logic by asking a few simple questions. Based on the answers, the Memo provides a customized list of documents required for a specific site. This gives you some idea of the power -- and unique value -- of rule-based document assembly.

By the way, if you're interested in learning more about what documents your site really needs, sign up for my newsletter, Website Law Alert, and download my FREE Special Report.

You should experiment with both types of tools to determine the best one for you.  Regardless of which one you choose, you'll start to enjoy the significant benefits of controlling the cost, aggravation, and turn-around time of the contract drafting process.  If you don't, your competitor probably will.

Copyright © 2008-09 Chip Cooper

This article is provided for educational and informative purposes only. This information does not constitute legal advice, and should not be construed as such.

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Leading Internet, IP and software lawyer Chip Cooper has automated the process of selecting and drafting website documents for small websites with his MyLegalFirewall website documents drafting service. Discover how quick, easy, and cost-effective it is to determine which legal compliance documents you need and to draft them online. Grab your FREE Special Reports, Determine Which Legal Documents Your Website Really Needs, Draft Your Own Website Privacy Policy, and Write Your Own Website Marketing Copy – Legally, at ==> http://www.digicontracts.com/