TermsFeed as a legal clause generator service

TermsFeed is an online legal service that lets any user (most often the owner of a website or an app) generate the legal terms and conditions they need to protect themselves and their users. It’s done by leading the user through a series of simple binary questions, and then delivering them a privacy policy, EULA, or other legal text.

All of the clauses are lawyer-drafted, and the expert system of TermsFeed delivers the right clause to fit the user’s needs.

Our agreements are drafted by professional lawyers with experience in writing Privacy Policies, Terms and Conditions, Terms of Service, Terms of Use and EULA agreements. Each agreement you download goes through a rigorous Quality Certification process.

The business model is creative. There are some free clauses, but the more  you want to specialize to your unique offering — and if you are a company versus an individual, you pay more. You go through the options, and you pay more for different parts of the customization process. When I tried to choose the cheapest possible Privacy Policy clause, I got a $14 bill.

It would be easy to get up to around $100 for a clause, but that is still cheaper than hiring a lawyer to draft (or copy/paste) a clause for you. The question is if the client loses something by not having a lawyer speak to them to find any other clauses, terms, or legal concerns that their product might raise.

There is an advantage to the user, though, about walking through the process themselves, and seeing all the factors that go into making an effective clause. Rather than just getting ‘magic words’ from a lawyer, they can begin to think through what these clauses are trying to protect against or disclaim liability from.

Certainly there will be more products in this vein, of ‘generators’ — for lawyers or for laypeople who want to do law on their own. It’s an easy experience, like shopping — click through a menu to customize it to your known particulars, and come out with what you wanted. It takes less than 15 minutes, it requires no complicated choices or text entry, and it’s a predictable price.

The big issue remains: quality control, especially when it is a clause that may take many years to play out and may have to deal with unpredictable scenarios.