When you need a legal document prepared, you don't always have to turn to an attorney if you're willing to do the research and trust yourself.
Various websites offer reasonably priced, or sometimes even free downloads of many legal documents ranging from will preparation and estate planning, to divorces and requests for name change, to incorporation papers when you're starting your own business.
Some sites offer a lot of background information to read or watch to guide you in making your selection of services. Once you create an account, you can answer a series of questions and the site will generate a custom document for you. There are also sites that offer some of the simplest forms free, and those that offer free forms and sample documents to download and use in creating your form yourself.
These websites would have been great if only all of your needed documents only required straightforward answers from prepared questions, but you actually do need to exercise proprietary information and reasoning in many of these documents.
If you create the legal document you need, do you know what to do with it? The website may initially be able to provide that information but take note that processes and regulations may possibly differ between states and sometimes even by locality. A lawyer would be quite adept at handling those peculiarities for you, make sure that the appropriate paperwork are properly filed, and perhaps even provide safe storage for some documents like wills, which don't have to come out until years after, when its owner already passed away.
When your answers are less than straightforward you may hit a snag. For example, in a second marriage you may want to leave your home to your children, but allow your spouse to live there until he or she dies. Online forms may not be able to cover lifetime estate.
The less likely that issues may be handled online once it gets increasingly complicated. In such cases, you will need an actual lawyer to ask the questions until such time that you get the necessary answers. At least these online forms don't require payment upfront which gives you the leeway to cancel halfway through the process, when it's already clear that they cannot provide the results you intended. While it will still take your time, it can also better prepare you for a visit to an attorney's office.
Another pleasant surprise may be that the visit to the attorney's office may not be as expensive as you think. When considering your alternatives, contact an attorney's office to see what they will charge for the same service. If the costs are comparable, you may choose a face-to-face interchange and someone else to handle the paperwork over the impersonal forms on the Internet and the challenge of filing everything yourself.
Various websites offer reasonably priced, or sometimes even free downloads of many legal documents ranging from will preparation and estate planning, to divorces and requests for name change, to incorporation papers when you're starting your own business.
Some sites offer a lot of background information to read or watch to guide you in making your selection of services. Once you create an account, you can answer a series of questions and the site will generate a custom document for you. There are also sites that offer some of the simplest forms free, and those that offer free forms and sample documents to download and use in creating your form yourself.
These websites would have been great if only all of your needed documents only required straightforward answers from prepared questions, but you actually do need to exercise proprietary information and reasoning in many of these documents.
If you create the legal document you need, do you know what to do with it? The website may initially be able to provide that information but take note that processes and regulations may possibly differ between states and sometimes even by locality. A lawyer would be quite adept at handling those peculiarities for you, make sure that the appropriate paperwork are properly filed, and perhaps even provide safe storage for some documents like wills, which don't have to come out until years after, when its owner already passed away.
When your answers are less than straightforward you may hit a snag. For example, in a second marriage you may want to leave your home to your children, but allow your spouse to live there until he or she dies. Online forms may not be able to cover lifetime estate.
The less likely that issues may be handled online once it gets increasingly complicated. In such cases, you will need an actual lawyer to ask the questions until such time that you get the necessary answers. At least these online forms don't require payment upfront which gives you the leeway to cancel halfway through the process, when it's already clear that they cannot provide the results you intended. While it will still take your time, it can also better prepare you for a visit to an attorney's office.
Another pleasant surprise may be that the visit to the attorney's office may not be as expensive as you think. When considering your alternatives, contact an attorney's office to see what they will charge for the same service. If the costs are comparable, you may choose a face-to-face interchange and someone else to handle the paperwork over the impersonal forms on the Internet and the challenge of filing everything yourself.
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