Should Koncision Maintain a List of Koncision-Friendly Lawyers?

Koncision’s confidentiality-agreement template is intended for sophisticated users. No surprise there—contracts can get complicated.

So any nonlawyer who wants to use Koncision might well benefit from a lawyer’s input. In this 2011 post I describe how a lawyer might help a nonlawyer with the template process.

Koncision could facilitate such cooperation by maintaining a list of lawyers willing, without charge, to help nonlawyers—presumably fledgling entrepreneurs—create a confidentiality agreement using Koncision’s template.

It’s clear what would be in it for nonlawyer users. What would be in it for lawyers who help them? Well, creating a confidentiality agreement is often a preliminary step to a bigger transaction, so doing some up-front work for free could well make sense. And it’s unlikely that anyone on a tight legal budget would be willing to pay a lawyer much, if anything, for helping with a confidentiality agreement, so any lawyer helping out a nonlawyer probably wouldn’t be missing out on paid work from that nonlawyer.

Furthermore, a nonlawyer would have to be pretty serious to want to use Koncision. That perhaps increases the odds that helping someone with Koncision could lead to a paid engagement down the road.

The list I have in mind would provide the name, firm affiliation, city, state, and email address of each lawyer, as well as a link to an online bio. I’d make it searchable. I’d allow myself to exclude any lawyer from the list if I don’t think they’re plausible, but I wouldn’t be vouching for anyone included in the list.

So, what do you think? Is this a worthwhile idea? If you’d like to be on the list, click here to send me an email. (Obviously, you shouldn’t take part unless you’re willing to become familiar with the questionnaire.) I wouldn’t put the list up until I have at least thirty lawyers who want to participate, and I’d circulate the list before posting it, to give everyone a chance to change their mind. For now, I’d limit the list to U.S.-based lawyers.

Once the list is up, I’d increase my efforts to spread awareness about Koncision in the entrepreneur community. I think that having readily accessible legal talent would make Koncision’s template more compelling to nonlawyers.