Hobby Lobby. The infamous June 30, 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision blew up on social media, blogging websites, and television satiric news programs. The plurality opinion [see footnote 1] was controversial for numerous reasons such as: Women’s voices versus a corporate’ voice. Business owner’s exercising control over medical decisions. Secular companies having religious beliefs. And […]
Is the legendary British detective Sherlock Holmes blackmailing the public? On Valentine’s Day 2013, Leslie S. Klinger challenged that notion by filing for declaratory judgment[see footnote i] in the Northern District of Illinois seeking a resolution to the issue: May the heirs of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle demand a licensing fee[see footnote ii] from anyone […]
LegalZoom Will NOT Protect You From You The real problem with LegalZoom’s forms (which I have alluded to or flatly stated in prior posts) is: When things go bad, you are left holding the bag, while LegalZoom gets to wash its proverbial hands clean. What I mean by this is: Any drafting mistakes you make […]
LegalZoom Cannot Get Its Own Contract Right With Its Customers When you purchase a document from LegalZoom, you automatically execute a binding, legal contract with it, entitled “Legal Document Assistant Contract for Self-Help Services” (we’ll call it “Your LegalZoom Contract”). After receiving such a contract when I bought LegalZoom’s General Agreement, I, of course, read […]
What Are Your Options When It All Goes Wrong? Your contract dictates (or should dictate) how problems are resolved between you and the other guy. That’s the beauty of contracts…a clear agreement will let you know what you’ve got yourself into—good or bad. So, what does LegalZoom allow you to do? Well, it gives you […]
How LegalZoom’s General Agreement Affects You Now that you have the building blocks, what do you do with them? Well, you actually have to go start constructing the General Agreement. So, what’s your plan of action? Although the LegalZoom Guide offers some instruction, it is simply not enough to guide you through the contracting process. […]
LegalZoom’s $12 Building Blocks After plunking down the twelve bucks for LegalZoom’s general agreement (the “General Agreement”), I expected it to ask me a few simple questions to get started. You know, straightforward questions such as what is the contract about—is it about merchandise, a personal service, a piece of property, or what? After all, […]
With the advent of legal document services such as LegalZoom, LegalACE, and Legal Arrow, entrepreneurs like you are under the impression that there are cheap services out there that will take care of all your legal needs—from entity formation to intellectual property registration to “general” contracts—without the need of an attorney. The catch: If these […]