3 ms·

Developer and former small business owner here. Your attorneys may have been using the same base template that was used to create your competitor's documentati

Developer and former small business owner here. Your attorneys may have been using the same base template that was used to create your competitor's documentation. Lawyers reduce the need to copy/pasta code, just like developers do. If an attorney's game of 20 questions leads to a bunch of templates that were drawn up before they ever knew you, values are filled in for your specific use case, you're not getting ripped off. You're (hopefully) not paying for words in a document. You're (hopefully) paying to have the contents of those documents cover your butt when shit hits the legal fan. The trick is to know templates exist. If you hire an attorney to do a bunch of work, and you are pretty sure that all of that legal work is just going to be generated using boilerplate templates, then you can negotiate a better rate based on the fact that the attorney is doing very little custom work. The more boilerplate being generated, the more leverage you have to negotiate a better price. Source: I learned this from a mentor to get favorable pricing on attorneys fees.

joshfraser 8y ago
It wasn't from a template. The language was way too specific to the specific business. And the law firm didn't deny that they had copied it.
- gdrift 8y ago
  Legal contracts are copyrightable too. I've learned this when looking for a basic tenants contract trying to save on lawyer's fees which seemed too high for such a standard document. So not sure how legally safe it is to just copy such documents.
  - Terretta 8y ago
    At least a decade ago since I checked but back then, “standard terms” clauses were not copyrightable, the theory being there’s an optimal way to express a legal idea and you can’t be barred from saying it that way. And a collection of such terms is basically a sampled remix. Quoting: “[Because] the vast majority of contracts prepared by law firms are either outright copies that aren’t entitled to copyright protection or are contracts that derive copyright protection from their status as compilations, a law firm would likely have a hard time demonstrating breach of copyright.” And: ”It is standard practice for corporate lawyers to copy—from deal binders, the SEC’s EDGAR database, and elsewhere—and revise contracts drafted by others.... It’s a safe assumption that the vast majority of contracts are either outright copies that aren’t entitled to copyright protection or contracts that derive copyright protection from their status as compilations. Because any compilation contract would resemble countless other contracts, a law firm would likely have a hard time demonstrating breach of copyright of its compilation contract. And even if were able to do so, its damages would likely be nominal, because compiling such contracts is a relatively quick scissor-and-paste exercise. So you should feel free to copy a run-of-the- mill compilation contract, not because doing so constitutes fair use, but because the likelihood of someone knowing of that copying and having any interest in preventing it are exceedingly remote.” https://www.adamsdrafting.com/downloads/Copyright-NYLJ-8.23.06.pdf https://www.adamsdrafting.com/downloads/Copyright-NYLJ-8.23....

joshfraser 8y ago

It wasn't from a template. The language was way too specific to the specific business. And the law firm didn't deny that they had copied it.

gdrift 8y ago
Legal contracts are copyrightable too. I've learned this when looking for a basic tenants contract trying to save on lawyer's fees which seemed too high for such a standard document. So not sure how legally safe it is to just copy such documents.
- Terretta 8y ago
  At least a decade ago since I checked but back then, “standard terms” clauses were not copyrightable, the theory being there’s an optimal way to express a legal idea and you can’t be barred from saying it that way. And a collection of such terms is basically a sampled remix. Quoting: “[Because] the vast majority of contracts prepared by law firms are either outright copies that aren’t entitled to copyright protection or are contracts that derive copyright protection from their status as compilations, a law firm would likely have a hard time demonstrating breach of copyright.” And: ”It is standard practice for corporate lawyers to copy—from deal binders, the SEC’s EDGAR database, and elsewhere—and revise contracts drafted by others.... It’s a safe assumption that the vast majority of contracts are either outright copies that aren’t entitled to copyright protection or contracts that derive copyright protection from their status as compilations. Because any compilation contract would resemble countless other contracts, a law firm would likely have a hard time demonstrating breach of copyright of its compilation contract. And even if were able to do so, its damages would likely be nominal, because compiling such contracts is a relatively quick scissor-and-paste exercise. So you should feel free to copy a run-of-the- mill compilation contract, not because doing so constitutes fair use, but because the likelihood of someone knowing of that copying and having any interest in preventing it are exceedingly remote.” https://www.adamsdrafting.com/downloads/Copyright-NYLJ-8.23.06.pdf https://www.adamsdrafting.com/downloads/Copyright-NYLJ-8.23....