Online Legal Documents

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For years, law firms have been promising 'greater efficiencies',

but the growth in online providers for some standard legal

documents seems to actually be delivering on at least part of that promise.



Dan Peters from www.cleardocs.com looks at how going online

delivers benefits to all parties, and explains what's in it

for you.



Accountants and other professional service providers have

known for some time that standardised legal documents do not

require a significant amount of legal work in order to be

tailored for individual client requirements. Why re-invent

the wheel – and keep making everyone pay through the nose

for it?



For a number of years, there have been standard 'shelf

company' providers who create legal documents such as Self

Managed Superannuation Fund Deeds, Family Trust Deeds, and

of course Company Registrations with the accompanying legal

Constitution.



However, on the web, there are now also online, automated

legal-service alternatives such as www.cleardocs.com and

www.lawcentral.com.au, which offer a select range of these

services online, with significant benefits all-round.



Company Registration Online

More than 150,000 new companies are registered each year with

the ASIC - which has long been promoting electronic lodgement

of documents with their 'EDGE' system. Today there are several

companies that provide software for this service – such as BGL,

or Solution 6. The down-side to these packages is that they can't create

the associated legal constitution that is required to establish the company.



Cleardocs (http://www.cleardocs.com) is unique in Australia in that

it is the only website that synchronises with the ASIC

database to allow web-based instant company registration --

with the ACN, constitution and all the other legal documents

delivered instantly. Instead of waiting until next day, or

even a few hours, the client can have the ACN and

constitution to execute in less than 20 minutes.



Time & Cost Savings

No longer do you have to start from scratch either.

By simply answering a series of intelligent questions

through a web-based interface, the documents can be

automatically created (on the basis of a master document

signed-off by a law firm), and be delivered via email or

downloaded instantly. Cost-savings can be dramatic, with

Trust Deeds less than 30% of the cost from a traditional law

firm or 'shelf company' service.



Another obvious benefit is the time-saving aspects. Instant

delivery is obviously attractive (an accounting firm can

create and download documents and have them ready for

signing while a client waits) thus enabling transactions to

be completed earlier. And turnaround time is also improved

through the document storage facility that allows the

customer to return and retrieve the documents as often as

desired.



Customisation = clarity = efficiency

The Q&A approach of the technology customises and tailors

the documents more precisely to your client's specific

circumstances – meaning less irrelevant legalese to wade

through, and a more coherent document as a result. Not

having to wade through pages of irrelevant text to

'get to the bit' that relates to your client's circumstances

(as happens with many traditional legal deeds) means that

you save time, and we all know what that saves.



Access for all

As professional advisers, you get paid for

the quality of your advice – not your ability to fill in

forms and order documents. By making the provision of these

documents more efficient for everyone, you can provide your

clients with a better value service, and make better quality

advice more affordable, and so more accessible.



If you want to see dramatic evidence of this in action,

watch what is happening to the Self Managed Superannuation

Fund sector right now. Only a few years ago, establishing an

SMSF cost upwards of $1,500, and SMSF's were considered the

domain of an elite few. As those establishment costs have

plummeted (Cleardocs charges only $137.50 for a new SMSF

setup), the number of individuals for whom an SMSF is a

viable option has boomed. The surrounding industry for

providing good, specialised advice has boomed too.



There's no substitute for good advice

None of these online services should be seen as, in any way,

a replacement for proper advice, whether that be accounting

or legal. The law allows "Shelf Company" services to operate

legally, and be used by professionals on behalf of their clients perfectly

safely, and the Act clarifies that these services do not in

themselves constitute "advice". The online technology merely

refreshes and updates some fairly outmoded processes, such

as faxing or phoning with instructions for the preparation

of these documents – and helps to streamline a "clerical" or

"administrative" function.



As a result, the entry costs for these sophisticated legal

structures is coming down, and hence the demand for high

quality legal and accounting advice is increasing – that's a

happy win-win for client and advisor.



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For more information about Online Legal Documents, visit the Cleardocs website at www.cleardocs.com.