Joystiq has you covered with all things Metal Gear Solid 4!

AOL Money & Finance

Entrepreneur's Journal: How to cut your legal bills

This week, I looked over the financials of a struggling business (essentially, the slowing economy is taking a toll). I was seeing if I could find some ways to cut costs.

Looking through the line items, I noticed some large legal bills. And, digging some more, I learned that the company was using a big-time law firm.

"You really don't need this kind of level of legal services," I said. "Besides, you can shop around for an attorney."

I also had some other suggestions:

DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Legal: You can gather your own legal advice for free. Just doing a routine Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) search, you'll notice many legal websites. However, you need to be wary. Do you know the quality of the content?

I think a better approach is to focus on well-established sources like:

  • AllBusiness.com: The site is chock full of helpful content and is backed by Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE: DNB).
  • U.S. Legal Forms: You'll find thousands of vetted legal forms (at affordable prices).
  • Nolo: Founded in the early 1970s, this company is now the premier publisher of self-help legal guides (and I've bought quite a few books from them).

Affordable Service Providers: If a DIY approach seems scary, there is a middle ground. There are online services that help with such things as incorporations, trademarks, copyrights, and even patents.

The top player in the sector is LegalZoom. Actually, I recently had a chance to visit the headquarters, which has an impressive setup. In a way, it's an efficient supply chain – with a call center, experts, proofreaders and so on that process legal documents.

More importantly, you'll only be spending a fraction of what a big-time attorney will charge you.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook (www.mergerbook.com) and is also a principal in Averiware, which provides an ERP system to small and midsize businesses.

Related Posts

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br> tags.

New Users

Current Users

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-283.1011,349.28
NASDAQ-45.772,280.11
S&P 500-29.651,252.54

Last updated: July 24, 2008: 05:38 PM

BloggingStocks Exclusives

Hot Stocks

BloggingStocks Featured Video

TheFlyOnTheWall.com Headlines

WalletPop Headlines

    AOL Business News

    Latest from BloggingBuyouts

    Sponsored Links

    My Portfolios

    Track your stocks here!

    Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.