What’s wrong with using templates?

If you run a small business then sometimes getting something bespoke designed or written for your exact needs can be difficult to afford and it seems easier to turn to templates, says Jason Edge, of LawEasier.

This can be for anything from a website design to an employment contract and there are hundreds of companies and resources out there that can provide templates and some are even for free. 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using templates as long as they meet your needs but if they don’t then you either have to compromise or hope for the best. By their very nature, templates are unoriginal and you may find your design or document being used by many other businesses. They are often (although not always) quite basic and restrictive too and as a consequence don’t always do everything that you needed them to do. But they are cheap and sometimes that trade off is acceptable. 

However, there can be occasions where templates can cause more issues than they resolve. I have heard some woeful tales from visitors to our stand at recent business shows regarding legal document templates. One example centred on a growing business who took on their first employee and needed an employment contract. They contacted a local firm of solicitors who quoted them £950 + vat and another £1,600 + vat for an employee handbook which was going to make a dent in their cash flow. It was also going to take the law firm 4 weeks to complete.  

As a member of a large national organisation that supports small businesses,  they had access to some free templates as part of their membership which they duly downloaded and proceeded to fill in the blanks. Not being completely versed in the minefield that is employment law, they filled in the blank spaces with what they thought was right rather than what was legally right and as a consequence created an employment agreement that turned out to be in breach of employment law. This came to light some time later when the employee was dismissed and decided to take the employer to a tribunal. It had an unhappy ending but I’m sure you get the picture. 

At LawEasier we don’t use templates to create legal documents, instead we us a form of AI that asks you the questions that a solicitor would ask you and then it creates a document that is bespoke to your needs and is 100% compliant with UK regulations. It protects you and your business at a price that is affordable. With LawEasier there is no limit to how many documents you can create from the hundreds available and each one guides you through the process and explains what you need. To aid cash flow you can pay monthly so from as little as £35 + vat per month you can make sure that your business is not going to fall foul of UK business law.  

As a SBT reader you can try LawEasier for free by visiting www.laweasier.co.uk/sbt