Docracy - Free (community curated) Legal Documents

http://www.docracy.com/

by carlsednaoui • 14 years ago

228 53 14 years ago

kmfrk• 14 years ago

Gorgeous website. What need or frustration fuelled the creation of it?

matt2000• 14 years ago

Hi there, I'm a Docracy founder. The frustration that fueled the creation of the site was us trying to sign an NDA in my previous startup. None of the parties involved really knew what NDA would be a good one to sign, we both just wanted that part of the relationship protected but over with as quickly as possible. We were surprised to find that there wasn't a repository of accepted standards for some of these things, so ultimately we decided to take a shot at making it ourselves.

When the site works best is when a document becomes a standard (for example, a NYC startup NDA) and you sign it on the site. Then you know it hasn't been tampered with by the counterparty and you can execute it quickly and confidently.

shotgun• 14 years ago

Yay! It's about time someone did this.

leoedin• 14 years ago

A really interesting concept! Unfortunately it's only really applicable for Americans though. It'd be nice if there was support for other legal systems, but I guess that'll come with time.

username3• 14 years ago

Ask the Samwer brothers. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3656156

munaf2• 14 years ago

Love it. Will a rating system be added? Would love to know which documents are better than others in a particular category.

pents90• 14 years ago

I'm a Docracy founder:

We may consider a rating system. Right now, we're keeping track (anonymously) of usage metrics, especially how often each document is executed (signed) via the site. Each execution is evidence that both the party and the counter-party found the terms to be sensible and fair, so we think this is a strong metric of quality for the document.

robinjfisher2• 14 years ago

Love it!

As a lawyer (UK based if you're thinking of expansion!), I think it's a great idea. I've been mulling over something similar for in-house teams but based on precedent clauses rather than entire documents.

aaronpk• 14 years ago

I would love to see a site that let you piece together a contract by choosing certain clauses to get the contract you want. Even in a simple subcontractor agreement you have to make decisions like a) what kind of non-compete do you want? b) who owns the copyright to the work, etc.

robinjfisher2• 14 years ago

This is a great idea too. One of the UK providers does a good job of this using technology they call FastDraft. Plugs in to Companies House to get company data for the parties to the agreement; allows you to specify how you want non-competes to work etc. For individuals or small companies it is cost-prohibitive though. A small legal team (3 or 4 people) can pay around £10k a year.

Generally, I think the legal market is ripe for disruption and can be demystified through applications like Docracy.

agentultra• 14 years ago

Cool site! It's like github for legal documents. Perfect.

Now if there was a way to encourage democratic gov'ts to draft their bills using something similar...

carlsednaoui• 14 years ago

Absolutely love this idea!

irrationalfab• 14 years ago

Great implementation of an idead that I guess often crossed the mind of many.

One feature request, please make it regional. It would be very nice if every document would have a geographical area and language attribute.

benwerd• 14 years ago

Absolutely fantastic. Anticipating the questions I'll get asked, what's the best way to do due diligence against these? The discussion is a great first step, but is there a way to file explicit "bugs" against a document, or show verified legal support for a document's worth?

Bostwick• 14 years ago

This is fantastic. As a student looking to start a company after graduation, I've wondered a lot about the legal issues surrounding equity, incorporation, and founders agreements. I feel that with this site, I can read sample documents so that, when I do need to talk to a lawyer, I will be much more informed.

ubervero4• 14 years ago

I'm in charge of content here at Docracy and here are answers to some of the initial questions: 1) All content is user generated, and we just started so please be patient if something is missing! We hope to get a solid library of US document to start, and then hopefully spread enough to cover also different jurisdictions/regions. 2) As pents90 said, rating system is pretty tricky for legal content, but we do track signatures and data to help people identify the most used documents. There's a discussion page for every document, where you can share questions and opinions, tell us if you need a specific version, etc 3) We'll co-host a legal hackathon next month, where people will use Docracy to branch the current draft of SOPA and PIPA and make it better. More info: http://legalhackathon.blipclinic.org/

Last but not least, here is some stuff useful to startups/hackers: http://www.docracy.com/75/employment-offer-letter http://www.docracy.com/103/founder-collaboration-agreement http://www.docracy.com/35/founders-equity-agreement http://www.docracy.com/263/founder-advisor-standard-template http://www.docracy.com/367/consulting-agreement-for-hourly-w... http://www.docracy.com/2817/standard-agreement-for-design-se...

Of course, any feedback is welcome!

munaf2• 14 years ago

Not to bug you with feature requests, but I think it would also be helpful to know which editors/users are verified attorneys - but I understand the complications and overhead involved with implementing that.

That said, terrific job. I could see myself being a paying customer (assuming you go that route). I think I'd just need some usage stats or perhaps testimonials from trusted parties to actually use a document.

praxeologist2• 14 years ago

I'd think most attorneys (or whomever) wanting to participate in a site like this might want to upload something such as a photo of their JD. There could be some way to offload the work of the site owners and give at least some credibility.

Anyhow, this site looks pretty awesome and I am going to check it out. As someone hyper-bootstrapping his first startup (poor), a halfassed privacy policy or something may be better than nothing anyhow. Maybe I can get some idea what I will be looking at before I take the dive and hire a real lawyer too.

slav• 14 years ago

great website and the idea - I was looking for content like that when starting my first company

liber85• 14 years ago

Fantastic idea, but as a lawyer, it makes me a bit nervous for those who would rely solely on the documents available.

Even if those documents are flawless and cover exactly what someone needs (incredibly unlikely), in many areas the documents themselves aren't necessarily the problem: it's knowing what documents, in combination, you need.

For example, if I want to make a real estate secured loan to someone, what do I need? If you're fairly sophisticated, you might say a Note and a Deed of Trust. Great, but what if that someone is a business or a single asset entity? Should you make the loan? Should you get a guaranty from the principals? Would that guaranty even be enforceable? In many cases, just having access to the documents really isn't enough. There's a reason attorneys are the only profession that get paid to research the very subject they're supposed to be experts in. This stuff is complicated.

I like the idea though, and if you could fill some of those knowledge gaps, this could be really valuable.

bostonvaulter2• 14 years ago

Couldn't this help lawyers as well? Basically like a simple standard library of documents.

liber85• 14 years ago

Yes, most definitely. There are companies that do nothing but produce form documents (for a hefty fee) that could be eliminated.

But again, the caveat is that, depending on the circumstances, a good lawyer might need to significantly modify even his own well crafted standard document to protect his client. The benefit of a good lawyer is knowing when things need to be modified.

ubervero4• 14 years ago

We think about this stuff a lot, of course. There's no doubt that the "perfect document" is really hard to find, and some documents are way too complicated to be executed without a lawyer. Nevertheless, as some reader said, sometimes you just want to see how a contract looks like, what other people do. For example, few people will sign a termsheet without a lawyer, but they could benefit from seeing the different standards and use Docracy's comparison feature to spot the differences, and distinguish the boilerplates from the juicy clauses. In other words, learn, and understand better what they end up signing, and what their lawyer says. We use the blog and other initiatives (we're organizing a series of free legal workshops here in NY, taught by startup lawyers to entrepreneurs) to inform and educate users, so they can tell when it's time to DIY, and when it's time to go to an attorney.

liber85• 14 years ago

Interesting. For those reasons, it could be valuable as well.

However, I think your statement indicates I didn't quite communicate my point clearly enough.

>>There's no doubt that the "perfect document" is really hard to find...<<

In most areas, there is no such thing as a perfect document. Trying to find one is a fool's errand. A document is only perfect in that it protects as many rights as possible for a particular client. Because different clients have different needs, wants, and rights, no document is going to be universally "perfect".

Again, this is not to say that your idea isn't great, and doesn't have the potential to provide a lot of value. I think it is/does.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

I would like to see when the documents have been litigated and under what circumstances. But of course that information is really hard to come by some times.

That being said, if they invested their time and energy into taking the output of the Superior Court docket and documents used there and the arguments made for and against the documents. Well that would be a really cool service.

rprasad5• 14 years ago

That would not help. Supreme Court filings are so specialized that they generally only apply to cases being heard before the Supreme Court. The documents underlying the cases litigated before the Supreme Court (i.e., contracts, etc.) are generally not analyzed by appellate courts in any detail unless they are specifically relevant to a discussion of the legal issues being contested before the court.

joshAg2• 14 years ago

> There's a reason attorneys are the only profession that get paid to research the very subject they're supposed to be experts in.

Isn't this true for any research professor/scientist, regardless of field? Why do you consider it to be unique to lawyers?

liber85• 14 years ago

In a way, yes, though I would argue that implicit in "scientist" or "research professor" is the idea that they are searching for unknowns. The professional world is thought of very differently.

If you went into an architect's office and he told you he'd need $4000 to research whether gravity applies to the building you want him to build, you'd scoff. If you went to an accountant to ask whether you can take a certain deduction and he said he needed $4000 to look it up, you'd think he was either incompetent or a fraudster. But this is accepted (and necessary) in the legal world.

noonespecial• 14 years ago

There's likely two different scenarios to consider.

The one we don't want to happen is: "I don't need a lawyer, I used that Docracy thing. I'm set."

The one that is an improvement is: "Well, I've got about $250 left in the bank, its that Docracy thing or the back of this napkin..."

rhizome• 14 years ago

Think of it as a boilerplate repository. I wouldn't be surprised if half of all initial legal maneuvers could be handled by a wizard in software. Yes, I know: "which half?"

quanfucius• 14 years ago

Bookmarked! Looks like it will definitely help startups get some general direction in regards to legal docs.

parvinsingh• 14 years ago

I just signed up with docracy, but as soon as I signed up and visited the next page- Test Signing Document (Non-Binding)

There is some spanish/french content, which I think is from the web design template that you used. You should think of removing it.

'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, noster periculis dissentiunt eam in, cu vivendo splendide sea, vidisse phaedrum mel ea. Vis ne paulo corpora suavitate, salutandi theophrastus vel ei, facilisi mediocrem deterruisset cum ex. Mandamus expetenda vis ad, cu dicit offendit constituto cum. Ad eos wisi pericula assueverit, in eum soleat insolens convenire. Has oratio aperiri aliquam ei, mei ex nostrud comprehensam. Summo quando eos ut, mundi maiorum cu sed.'

patrickaljord• 14 years ago

This is Latin, not Spanish/French. I'm surprised an HNer wouldn't know that.

simonbrown• 14 years ago

That's placeholder text.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum

sek• 14 years ago

Now a semantic analysis of the text would be great.

A legal document is just a combination of generic words for specific circumstances.

Maybe law language is just a programming language in some way and we need coffescript for that.

rprasad5• 14 years ago

Such things exist -- they are called legal treatises.

For laymen, the equivalent would be books like the Nolo series.

mkramlich2• 14 years ago

I like the spirit of this and LegalZoom. I never understood how come we couldn't just fill out and submit a web form to create most kinds of businesses, assuming generic enough details. I understand there are complex edge cases and situations but there are ways of making them a non-issue if we have the collective willpower and make the right base premises.

rprasad5• 14 years ago

The forms themselves are easy, even trivial to fill out. However, the Secretaries of State generally do not have the resources to fully modernize their filing systems to handle web-based submissions.

Also, in many cases (i.e., California), the SOS's are barred by statute from accepting non-physical business filings for new entities.

mkramlich2• 14 years ago

interesting. thanks for insight. so both of those still fallback to a case of lacking willpower and political inertia

this area feels like one of those cases where if we could start with a blank slate, from scratch, and design it "right, from the start", this problem would go away. actually a lot of government and banking feels that way. much of it is an echo/zombie from an era without computers, without the Internet, without telecomm, etc. they just shamble on and very slowly and incrementally incorporate the state-of-the-art, usually only in little pockets and niches.

azov• 14 years ago

It would be great to also add a short human-readable (i.e. non-legalize) version of each document. Something along the lines of what Creative Commons folks do with their licenses (e.g. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)

zalew• 14 years ago

> Download PDF / Download Word

Providing a non-proprietary format such as ODF wouldn't hurt.

Docracy - Free (community curated) Legal Documents

Related Stories