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South Africa’s law fraternity takes exception to the suggestion it may in a lot of ways be doing a number on those who engage their services. In fact, when Finweek’s online partner Fin24.com tussled with some of Sandton’s biggest and baddest about some of their gratuitous displays of wealth, many responded by saying corporate SA should be grateful to be chosen by some of the big name law firms.
While that’s a debate for another day, there’s no question the cost of legal services in SA makes it often prohibitive. That puts simple issues such as contracts out of the reach of many ordinary South Africans and, as the old adage goes: “The only time you need good legal advice is, well... when you need good advice”.
For that reason we were quite interested when we heard about a new online offering called LawUnlocked that’s seeking to reduce the costs of drawing up legal documents and will be of particular interest to small businesses and those who have to put together employment contracts. The immediate thought was that LawUnlocked (which can be found at www.lawunlocked.co.za) was simply offering some templates that could be populated by users. That isn’t the case.
Richard van Helden, founder of LawUnlocked and a lawyer by profession, says: “A lot of legal contracts are in fact repetition and, truth be told, many of the paragraphs that go into a contract aren’t necessary but are just there because somebody else had previously included them.”
LawUnlocked rather takes clients through an online interview process that will take 10 to 15 minutes and explores only the key fields. There’s some flexibility for different scenarios that differentiates it from traditional “template” type offerings.
Finweek decided to put it to the test. We thought it a handy offering, but with some drawbacks. The first and most obvious area where LawUnlocked does compete is on price. A shareholder agreement can be drawn up for R650. Most other law firms appear to be charging between R4 000 and R10 000 for a basic shareholder agreement. The second is that the user isn’t being charged for the interview process.
The online interview process isn’t complicated and if you’re vaguely tech capable you’ll find no problems navigating the site. However, one area where the LawUnlocked process does seem to fall a bit short is if you deviate from the standard contract.
Van Helden says if your needs aren’t covered by one of the other contracts offered by LawUnlocked, one option is to take the contract to your law firm and help them make any changes. By doing the majority of the legwork through the site you have already saved yourself a significant amount of money.
While that’s a debate for another day, there’s no question the cost of legal services in SA makes it often prohibitive. That puts simple issues such as contracts out of the reach of many ordinary South Africans and, as the old adage goes: “The only time you need good legal advice is, well... when you need good advice”.
For that reason we were quite interested when we heard about a new online offering called LawUnlocked that’s seeking to reduce the costs of drawing up legal documents and will be of particular interest to small businesses and those who have to put together employment contracts. The immediate thought was that LawUnlocked (which can be found at www.lawunlocked.co.za) was simply offering some templates that could be populated by users. That isn’t the case.
Richard van Helden, founder of LawUnlocked and a lawyer by profession, says: “A lot of legal contracts are in fact repetition and, truth be told, many of the paragraphs that go into a contract aren’t necessary but are just there because somebody else had previously included them.”
LawUnlocked rather takes clients through an online interview process that will take 10 to 15 minutes and explores only the key fields. There’s some flexibility for different scenarios that differentiates it from traditional “template” type offerings.
Finweek decided to put it to the test. We thought it a handy offering, but with some drawbacks. The first and most obvious area where LawUnlocked does compete is on price. A shareholder agreement can be drawn up for R650. Most other law firms appear to be charging between R4 000 and R10 000 for a basic shareholder agreement. The second is that the user isn’t being charged for the interview process.
The online interview process isn’t complicated and if you’re vaguely tech capable you’ll find no problems navigating the site. However, one area where the LawUnlocked process does seem to fall a bit short is if you deviate from the standard contract.
Van Helden says if your needs aren’t covered by one of the other contracts offered by LawUnlocked, one option is to take the contract to your law firm and help them make any changes. By doing the majority of the legwork through the site you have already saved yourself a significant amount of money.
