So are You thinking of Using an Online Legal Service for a Legal Question you might have?

I once wrote an article about saving money by legally using your free employer’s services, but how do you know for sure if you can legally do this, and more importantly has the rules changed?  Maybe you should consider using an online legal service for a good answer to your questions?

How to Find Quality Online Legal Services

You’ve decided to create a legal document for yourself, your family or your business over the Internet. However, with the large number of websites providing online legal help, you may feel overwhelmed and confused on which services you should purchase. Finding quality online help is crucial, so this article outlines a few steps you should take to ensure that you receive quality online help and find the best online legal help website for you.

Find Out Which Services You Are Looking For

The first and most important step when looking for online legal help is to know exactly what you need. If there is a specific legal document you want to create, you can find it easily on many different sites. If you are not sure you need a legal document for your personal, family or business situation, or if you don’t really know where to start, you should consider talking with a lawyer first before relying on online legal help. Keep in mind that criminal cases or complex family legal matters will almost always require you to consult with a ‘brick and mortar’ attorney’s office, no matter what you may read online.

Look for Services that Offer Real Lawyers

The best way to weed out fraudulent or poor quality online legal help websites is to only look for sites that have real attorneys you can talk with. Look for a directory that will point you to local professionals you can consult with if you have specific questions or concerns. A great way to find out if the services you are looking at have real attorneys or not is to go through the disclaimer. If the professionals displayed on the site aren’t attorneys, this should be somehow indicated.

Ask for Personal Referrals

You probably aren’t the only person who had to deal with creating a legal document or have questions answered by a lawyers. Chances are your relatives, friends or acquaintances probably used an online legal help website in the recent past. According to nolo.com, asking your family and/or friends for recommendations can be a great way to find out what websites are worth looking into and which ones to avoid at all costs.

Read the Fine Print

Yes, reading fine print may seem like a waste of time and (may) be boring. However, it is essential that you do so before your purchase services from an online legal help website. As mentioned above, there are very important facts about the website in the fine print that you may not see anywhere else in the site. For example, the legal credentials of the website, fees, prices, subscription requirements and other details about the services offered may only be mentioned in the ‘terms and agreements’ or ‘disclaimer’ paragraph. Always rely on the information contained in these sections to make a decision rather than on the site’s main page or marketing offers, which may not be 100% truthful.

Consult Online Reviews

If you relatives and friends have never dealt with online legal advice, you may not know where to find reviews and ratings about the online legal help websites you are looking at. There are many websites specializing in comparing and reviewing online legal services. There are also blog posts, public forums and customer’s sites that offer testimonial and more detailed comments about specific websites. As long as you look at more than one online resource, you will likely be able to obtain a good idea of whether a website is worth investing time and money into. According to nextadvisor.com, legal online help site that truthfully compares its own performance to competitors usually feels more credible than a site who claims to be the #1 legal help site with no numbers or reviews to back it up.

Therefore, keeping a watch out for such kind of information can be really helpful as this will help you select the best legal online help site for you, your family and/or your business and thereby avoid any potential below the par services when you are out seeking online legal help. One great example of such a site happens to be Legalzoom, which allows potential clients like yourself to check out how Legalzoom’s services fare versus other legal services out there on the internet.

When looking for online legal help services, make sure that you can receive legal services that are in accordance with your local and/or state’s laws. If you are not careful, you may end up purchasing legal services that deal with laws in another state than the one you live in! Make sure that the professionals that answer legal questions online are from your area. This could be easy to verify by navigating through the website, as most of them should ask for your zip code or your state of residence. You can also find online directories that will help direct you to legal websites and lawyers in your area.

In today’s society, a online legal service seems to be a very viable and value added service to me?

What do you think?

Chase