I'm not a lawyer, nor do I want to be a lawyer. Nothing against lawyers, of course. It's just that it's all a little over my head. However, as we all know, hiring an attorney to do legal work can be terribly expensive. Take contracts for instance. That can cost a pretty penny just to have one written up.
Naturally, it will always be better to hire a lawyer for contract creation, or you could at least ask them to review the details of the contract that you have written up. However, for the sake of your bank account's long term health, there are several websites available that offer free legal documents like contract samples for you to download and tweak to your own needs.
OneCLE
California-based OneCLE is the go-to site for simply browsing contracts. With its content thrown at you all at once, you can view your options if you just aren't sure as to what you really need. By the way, the information found on this site goes beyond California's boundaries, so don't worry about borders.
The site's strengths seems to be in the business area as opposed to personal contracts. Furthermore, this goes for businesses such as corporations and LLCs, so freelancers may struggle finding what they need here. Additionally, there is a small selection of consumer contracts for your off-site needs.
Your Free Legal Forms
Your Free Legal Forms is a collaborative community effort that supplies contracts from users for the rest of the world to share. Built utilizing a search engine platform, the site crawls through all of its submitted free legal documents to find exactly the one that you are looking for.
To be honest, the site ran a little slow compared to the other ones on my Internet adventures, so be patient when loading things up. Furthermore, there is not a browsing function to just pour through contracts if you aren't sure as to what you really need. However, the content of the actual site is of superior quality, and I would definitely say that it is worth checking out.
Free Legal Documents
Free Legal Documents seems a little bare-bones compared to what I already have shared here, but one of its key strengths is that it provides detailed information with every contract listed in its archives. The site offers how-to's and raw descriptions for every party involved in the creation of a contract. Best of all, this information is entirely free, and unlike other prettier, fancier sites, you don't even have to sign up for anything.
Granted, despite there being advice on this site, do not consider it a replacement for actual legal counsel. If anything, this is a site by the average Joe for the average Joe. However, the average Joe with authorship always found herself in a situation where contracts were needed, and as such, she learned a few tricks along the way.
Printable Contracts
Printable Contracts currently offers 174 sample contracts in nearly every category imaginable for absolutely, positively no charge at all. This is a site I recently used for my own contractual endeavors, and it really does lay things out for people to easily understand and modify. Everything can be read in-browser for review, and when you are ready to commit, you can download the file in .DOC form.
The variety of contracts on this site is very expansive, and I found everything from contracts for your own children to contracts establishing the creation of a business. What's the bottom line? If you are in a bind and want to create something quick, I would definitely go with Printable Contracts.
Conclusion
Well, this is the part where I tell you that MakeUseOf is merely a tech-related blog and not a replacement for legal counsel. Got it? Good. Now that we got that out of the way, I want to hear what you think!
Did you find the above sites useful? What other sites do you use for free legal documents?
Image Credit: calgrin