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.
New Automated Contract Drafting Tools
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.
Electronic Forms Are Less Flexible And Require More
Knowledge
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 Are More Flexible And Do
Most of The Work For You
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.
Be mindful, however, that these rule-based tools are expert
system-like; therefore, the logic and clauses which make up
the system are only as good as the :expert" who created
them.
Which Tool Is Best For You?
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.
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Chip Cooper is a leading intellectual property, software,
and Internet attorney who advises software and ecommerce
businesses nationwide. Chip's easy and affordable online
contract drafting service coordinates website contracts
such as Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, Subscription,
Membership, and SaaS agreements. Visit Chip's
http://www.digicontracts.com/ site and download his FREE
report, "12 Sure-Fire Ways Your Website Can Get You Sued".
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