When it comes to the quality of our templates, I’m not inclined to speak in absolute terms. But I’m comfortable speaking in relative terms: Our templates allow you to create contracts that are much clearer, much more concise, and much more relevant than anything else out there. After all, what’s out there is 93% dysfunctional, and good luck identifying the 7% that isn’t.
The only question is whether you have enough at stake in a transaction that it’s worth your while to take the time to create a customized contract. (You could instead use some standard-form initiative. Or crank the handle of the copy-and-paste machine.)
Customization
Could our templates be improved? Of course they could! The customization any template offers represents just one of an infinite number of takes. If you think we should offer additional, or alternative, customization, tell me by emailing me at ken@legalsifter.com. Our only requirement is that a given instance of customization should be sufficiently relevant to the universe of users that the hassle of having an extra question to answer is more than offset by your being able to address that issue.
Guidance
Could we offer guidance that’s clearer or more informative? Doubtless. But our guidance is just a starting point. (There’s very little space for guidance on the interview. If we think a topic is important enough, we offer “overflow” guidance—clicking on a link takes you to a web page with more.)
Quality Control
My document-assembly consultant says the service agreement template is “a beast.” It’s not that does anything particularly sophisticated. Instead, what’s notable is the sheer extent of the customization—it can be mind-boggling for me, the creator, to navigate. (The image associated with this post is a snippet of the code involved.) The users sees none of that complexity—they just get the benefit of it.
One result of the complexity is that it requires lots of quality control. I’d be surprised if there weren’t glitches still lurking in the template. Problems with the interview (for example, a question that appears when it shouldn’t, or a repeated hyperlink). Or problems in the output document (for example, extra spaces, or missing spaces, or text that appears where it shouldn’t). If you see any such glitches, please tell me!
Novelty
The service agreement template has allowed me to apply novel approaches I’ve discussed on social media. For example, the approach to “miscellaneous” provisions discussed in this blog post. I wouldn’t be surprised if I need to tweak experimental stuff.
Implementing Changes
One nice thing about document-assembly templates is that once you make a fix, it stays fixed. So you can expect our templates to gradually get better.
