Biglaw Late to the Law Template Party

Via the LawSites blog, I learned that biglaw firm Wilson Sonsini’s subsidiary SixFifty just launched a marketplace where businesses can purchase document templates on an ala carte basis.  If the concept sounds familiar, that’s because it is: solo and small law firms have been selling templates for years now as a second stream of revenue to, relying on out of the box platforms like Kajabi, Gumroad or Shopify to create an online point of sale.

Here are just a quick sampling of lawyers who sell templates online:

• https://pixellaw.com/contract-shop/
• https://awbfirm.com/collections/all
• https://kristenherwitz.com/contract-templates
• https://theboutiquelawyer.com/faqs
• https://aselfguru.com/legal-store/
• https://bobbyklinck.com/legal-templates/
• https://www.artfulcontracts.com/store

And of course, yours truly, with http://www.myshingle.com/the-legal-clauseit (templates for law firms).

Here’s the magic of the template model: it’s a legal info product and not legal service/practice of law. So Abracadabra – no UPL! No IOLTA. Lawyers can use referral and  affiliate fees to promote and sell their products subject  to FTC disclosures! And while a legal template costs less than a bespoke document, you can sell them at scale, creating a source of passive income.

It remains to be seen whether other large firms will join 650 in this marketplace adventure.  But with today’s technology, solos and smalls can continue to compete in this space with biglaw as we always have.