Welcome to the Law Firm “Clause It” – Launching Next Week!
When entrepreneurs launch a startup, they can find dozens of high-quality , affordable online resources to create the types of documents and agreements needed to start and operate a business. Some of the best known free offerings from biglaw firm, Orrick or payment processor, Stripe Atlas include incorporation documents and employee agreements. And many enterprising attorneys have set up online shops like the Contract Vault, the Contract Shop and AWB Contract Templates which sell attorney-drafted and approved form contracts, website terms of service and other agreements at affordable prices.
Yet there’s no comparable contracts and form agreements for lawyers.
Perhaps it’s assumed that lawyers – because they are lawyers – can simply draft agreements themselves. But unless a lawyer represents small businesses, chances are that they don’t have much more experience in drafting an agreement than a non-attorney business person. And while lawyers can certainly take a CLE or find training on drafting agreements, that can be time consuming and delay them from bringing business in the door.
What about bar associations? Don’t they have resources for lawyers. Well, yes…and no. Many bar associations offer standard retainer agreement templates, as do malpractice insurance vendors malpractice insurance vendors. Unfortunately, these agreements are generally in PDF format which makes them less convenient to “plug and play.” Meanwhile, some of these agreements haven’t aged well and don’t include clauses to account modern practice trends such as outsourcing, cloud-based platform use or digital document storage.
Moreover, while bar associations and vendors cover agreements that lawyers need to work with clients or even other attorneys, they don’t cover the kinds of business agreements that law firms need in their capacity as law firm owners. Yet for these types of contracts – such as an LLC operating agreements, website terms of service and independent contractor arrangements, generic business models aren’t sufficient because they don’t reflect lawyers’ ethics obligations. You can check out my video on that topic here.
Nine years ago, I created a digital product, The Art, Science and Ethics of the 21st Century Retainer Agreement that identified many of these shortcomings and offered clauses to address them. But the product fell short in that it did not offer comprehensive sample templates or more general business agreements adapted for lawyer use.
With the passage of time, I questioned whether a need for such a product existed – and if it did, why it hadn’t been filled by someone else. But no one stepped up, and one of the top ten search terms for MyShingle continues to be “retainer agreement sample” which suggests demand remains. And so I’m happy to announce that on MONDAY MARCH 22, 2021, I will be opening The Law Firm Clause-It (get it?) where lawyers can purchase the 85-page Art, Science & Ethics of the 21st Century Retainer Agreement ebook, along with 30+ form documents from Client Policies to Independent Contractor and Intern Agreements and a law firm LLC Operating Agreement (see list here ), a master retainer agreement and 25+ special clauses that can be included. All documents are in word editable format.
I want to get this product into the hands of as many attorneys as possible to make their lives easier and enable them to protect themselves and their business. So for the first week after launch, the entire product will be available for a special introductory rate of $97.00. The product will never again be available at that rate. To receive a reminder and special link to purchase at the reduced price, please sign up below (no payment required)