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For years, law firms have been promising 'greater efficiencies',
but the growth in online providers for some standard legal
documents seems to actually be delivering on at least part of that promise.
Dan Peters from www.cleardocs.com looks at how going online
delivers benefits to all parties, and explains what's in it
for you.
Accountants and other professional service providers have
known for some time that standardised legal documents do not
require a significant amount of legal work in order to be
tailored for individual client requirements. Why re-invent
the wheel – and keep making everyone pay through the nose
for it?
For a number of years, there have been standard 'shelf
company' providers who create legal documents such as Self
Managed Superannuation Fund Deeds, Family Trust Deeds, and
of course Company Registrations with the accompanying legal
Constitution.
However, on the web, there are now also online, automated
legal-service alternatives such as www.cleardocs.com and
www.lawcentral.com.au, which offer a select range of these
services online, with significant benefits all-round.
Company Registration Online
More than 150,000 new companies are registered each year with
the ASIC - which has long been promoting electronic lodgement
of documents with their 'EDGE' system. Today there are several
companies that provide software for this service – such as BGL,
or Solution 6. The down-side to these packages is that they can't create
the associated legal constitution that is required to establish the company.
Cleardocs (http://www.cleardocs.com) is unique in Australia in that
it is the only website that synchronises with the ASIC
database to allow web-based instant company registration --
with the ACN, constitution and all the other legal documents
delivered instantly. Instead of waiting until next day, or
even a few hours, the client can have the ACN and
constitution to execute in less than 20 minutes.
Time & Cost Savings
No longer do you have to start from scratch either.
By simply answering a series of intelligent questions
through a web-based interface, the documents can be
automatically created (on the basis of a master document
signed-off by a law firm), and be delivered via email or
downloaded instantly. Cost-savings can be dramatic, with
Trust Deeds less than 30% of the cost from a traditional law
firm or 'shelf company' service.
Another obvious benefit is the time-saving aspects. Instant
delivery is obviously attractive (an accounting firm can
create and download documents and have them ready for
signing while a client waits) thus enabling transactions to
be completed earlier. And turnaround time is also improved
through the document storage facility that allows the
customer to return and retrieve the documents as often as
desired.
Customisation = clarity = efficiency
The Q&A approach of the technology customises and tailors
the documents more precisely to your client's specific
circumstances – meaning less irrelevant legalese to wade
through, and a more coherent document as a result. Not
having to wade through pages of irrelevant text to
'get to the bit' that relates to your client's circumstances
(as happens with many traditional legal deeds) means that
you save time, and we all know what that saves.
Access for all
As professional advisers, you get paid for
the quality of your advice – not your ability to fill in
forms and order documents. By making the provision of these
documents more efficient for everyone, you can provide your
clients with a better value service, and make better quality
advice more affordable, and so more accessible.
If you want to see dramatic evidence of this in action,
watch what is happening to the Self Managed Superannuation
Fund sector right now. Only a few years ago, establishing an
SMSF cost upwards of $1,500, and SMSF's were considered the
domain of an elite few. As those establishment costs have
plummeted (Cleardocs charges only $137.50 for a new SMSF
setup), the number of individuals for whom an SMSF is a
viable option has boomed. The surrounding industry for
providing good, specialised advice has boomed too.
There's no substitute for good advice
None of these online services should be seen as, in any way,
a replacement for proper advice, whether that be accounting
or legal. The law allows "Shelf Company" services to operate
legally, and be used by professionals on behalf of their clients perfectly
safely, and the Act clarifies that these services do not in
themselves constitute "advice". The online technology merely
refreshes and updates some fairly outmoded processes, such
as faxing or phoning with instructions for the preparation
of these documents – and helps to streamline a "clerical" or
"administrative" function.
As a result, the entry costs for these sophisticated legal
structures is coming down, and hence the demand for high
quality legal and accounting advice is increasing – that's a
happy win-win for client and advisor.
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For more information about
Online Legal Documents, visit the Cleardocs website at www.cleardocs.com.
