Drafting Legal Documents Yourself

If you are the owner or manager of a small business, you will come across many situations in which you need to use a legal document to achieve a specific aim. When in this situation it is often tempting to try and do the work yourself and have a go at drafting the legal paperwork. Whilst in simple cases this might work, many legal documents which look outwardly simple can only be drafted accurately and effectively by people who have an extensive knowledge of the law.

Drafting even a simple document, such as terms and conditions can be a complicated and drawn out process if you do not have experience with this, and there are a number of steps which you will need to follow, even before you start the drafting process:

1) Plan out exactly what situation you want the legal document to cover, and what you think needs to be included in the document;
2) Research the basic law relating to these areas. This could include a wide range of different legal fields, such as contract law and breach of contract, negligence, debt collection, the sale of goods act, and liability for damage caused by faulty goods;
3) Think about the potential risks in your business field, the potential for things to go wrong and the possible ways in which your staff, suppliers or customers might try to sue you;
4) Research the ways in which you can try to guard against the risk of being sued. If this includes using exclusion clauses to deny or limit liability for damage, you will need to research the law on unfair contract terms to see exactly how much you can limit your own responsibility;
5) Think about any specific legal requirements - for example, if you are going to be dealing with people's names & addresses and other contact details, you will need to make sure your terms comply with data protection laws, and if you work in a regulated sector your governing body may have specific requirements about terms that you must include;
6) Think about how the different clauses and terms will interact - what will happen when there is a conflict between two terms? Which will take precedence?
7) Consider how disputes relating to the legal document will be settled, what law will be applied and what direction on interpretation you will need to give for the benefit of any court which is later asked to judge a case based on the document.

Once you have gathered all of the information necessary and have done all research in order to begin the drafting process, you will be faced with the problem of how to put your intentions and requirements into words. If there is any ambiguity in your choice of language, then your legal document may not do the job that you intended it to. It is also important to remember that many phrases and words which are often used in legal documents have a special and specific meaning which isn't always the same as the everyday meaning of the word.

Even after having completed your legal document, you still cannot be sure that it will do its job properly and there is a risk that there may be loopholes or gaps in the document which would only be noticed by a lawyer.

Whilst you can draft some legal documents yourself, this may not be the most economical option when you consider all of the additional time and effort which you will have to put into researching legal concepts and rules before you even write the first line of the document. Solicitor or legal professional who is experienced in this area will already have a substantial knowledge of these issues and can often start work on drafting your legal document straight away, and you can have the confidence that your document has been carefully checked by a lawyer to ensure that it is legally accurate and effective.

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