Monday, February 2, 2009

My Year of Hopefulness - LegalZoom

I've been doing some research on starting a company as I seriously begin to explore the world of entrepreneurship. What I'm finding is that it's easier than ever to get your own business up and running. The paperwork, legalities, and payment systems used to be such a hassle that it would deter many interested in getting their own business going. Services like PayPal have made the payment conundrum a near non-issue. But those pesky legal issues persisted, until now.

Today, I saw a television ad for a company called LegalZoom. It is an internet-based company that claims to make filing legal paperwork such as LLC, 501(3)(c), trademarks, patents, copyright, etc. easy as filling out a simple questionnaire. I was skeptical but curious because the prices quoted on the commercial were so affordable. 

Well-organized and straight-forward, LegalZoom has everything a new entrepreneur needs to get going and keep going from a legal perspective. (They also have personal legal services as well such as will and trust set-up.) They also have an education center on-line and there are customer service reps on-hand as well, real live people you can call without worrying about billable hours. If I was a lawyer, I'd be worried. 

There will always be attorneys for complicated legal issues that require personal attention from an expert. If we're just talking about moving paper, mostly of the boiler plate variety, the days of $500 an hour attorneys may be over.   

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