In recent weeks I’ve been doing show-and-tell of the FirstDrafter functionality for a number of lawyers and business people. Just about everyone said they liked the site’s ease of use and the plain-English style of the clauses. Some were especially taken by the ‘pre-sets’ that can be used to configure a contract form to favor one party or another.
Still, it looks like it’s going to be a while before many people will be willing to actually pay to use the site:
- Several of the lawyers said they’d most likely use the FirstDrafter site only on occasion, to look up a clause or two that they needed to plug into their own existing contract forms.
- The business people wondered why they should use the FirstDrafter contract forms instead of rummaging through the various actual contracts posted on Scribd and elsewhere.
OK, that’s good to know. Now to work on dealing with these ‘challenges.’
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Signing a business contract:
DC:
Hopefully you won’t let those comments discourage you. Lawyers are always going to look for the easiest solution when we’re talking about a drafting issue. It’s just the nature of the beast.
Additionally, make sure that you focus on differentiation from “actual contracts”. Just because something has been written, all it’s got is the POWER of legitimacy… not ACTUAL legitimacy. I’ve been in this game for more than a decade. People will sign just about anything. The fact that they do doesn’t make it good.
:)
~Jeff