As I announced in this blog post, we’re now accepting nonlawyers as Koncision customers.
But if you’re not a lawyer and you suspect that you’d benefit from a lawyer’s input while completing the questionnaire for our confidentiality-agreement template, here’s how that could be arranged:
- You could ask your lawyer to complete the questionnaire and generate the output document, for a flat fee. You’d then discuss the draft, after which your lawyer would relaunch the questionnaire and make any changes.
- You could complete the questionnaire yourself and generate the output document, then have your lawyer review it, for a flat fee. After you receive any comments, you’d relaunch the questionnaire and make any adjustments.
- You could complete the questionnaire, then consult your lawyer about how to answer select questions. (In addition to other means, you could do that in a GoToMeeting or WebEx session, so that you’re both looking at the same questionnaire. Or you could have the questionnaire on an iPad and complete it while meeting face-to-face with your lawyer.) Then you’d generate the output document and have your lawyer review it. You’d pay your lawyer a flat fee for the consultation and review. After you receive any comments—presumably fewer than would be the case if your lawyer hadn’t helped you determine how to answer some questions—you’d relaunch the questionnaire and make any adjustments.
Any of these options would result in a smaller bill for legal fees and a clearer contract that’s better tailored to your needs. But that said, I like option three …
The value of the attorney isn’t in filling out the form or questionnaire — as long as the initial instructions are clear enough, that shouldn’t be a problem. The attorney’s value comes in helping the client sort through the proposed changes from the other side. There are always practical things that need to be thought through: “Sorry, we can’t keep information secret forever — our employees are only required to keep it secret for X years.” “We won’t return electronic copies — to do that, we’d have to pull the hard drives out of our computers, but we’ll agree to delete them.”, “You can’t just pick any old ‘neutral jurisdiction’ that doesn’t have any nexus to the parties or the transaction,” etc…..
Koncision’s questionnaire doesn’t just ask the user to plug in rudimentary information. Instead, you’re asked to make plenty of strategic decisions. So input from a lawyer might well come in handy.
And this post covers just creating the first draft.
Ken