Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Fiona, an expert from Q Marketplace. Q is an online platform for small businesses to choose from only the leading tools to start and grow their business. With our free dashboard, you can manage software stats, account information, billing, and more. Our goal is to help you find the best software for your small business. Because of that, today we're going to talk about two online legal sites, Law Depot and LegalZoom. Using online legal forms can be an initial good step when starting your business. It can save you time and money, and it can also help you when you're growing your business. However, in some cases, it's not a substitute for speaking with a lawyer. So we'll take you through our comparison charts and also the Law Depot and LegalZoom sites in order to help you understand which might be right for your business. Let's get started. Each business is different, so when purchasing online legal forms, it's important to consider what you need. We'll take you through these five criteria in order to help you decide how to choose between Law Depot and LegalZoom. Things that you might need to think about are the types of forms that you need, how many forms you need, pricing structure, support and usability, and legal help. If you're starting a business, knowing what you need can inform your decision about which online legal service to use. Both Law Depot and LegalZoom have LLC formation, S or C incorporation, partnerships or joint venture forms, and also trademark registration. There are some differentiating factors between the sites. Let's take a look at the Q comparison chart for some examples. We have Law Depot on the left, LegalZoom on the right, and if we scroll down, I'll walk you through just a few of the features that are included in our chart. As you can see, for Law Depot, they don't have the ability to do doing business as filings, registered agent services, or business license research. Why might this be important? Well, some states require you to have a registered agent to accept official notices on behalf of your business, and some states will act as your registered agent for no charge. LegalZoom, here on the right, will act as your registered agent if your state does not, and the benefit of this is that they will notify you of any ongoing compliance deadlines after your business is formed. Law Depot does not have this service. Legal forms and templates are also useful when you're an established business and need to expand your legal protection in some way. Examples of popular legal forms to grow your business include power of attorney, non-disclosure agreements, promissory notes, independent contractor agreements. Let's talk about pricing using the Q comparison chart as a beginning. Now as you can see, pricing varies widely depending on if you want a monthly plan or a one-off document, and if you just want a one-off document, the prices there can also vary. Keeping in mind that Law Depot is on the left, LegalZoom is on the right, as you can see, Law Depot offers a free trial, multiple pricing plans, and their pricing starts at about $12 a month. On the right, LegalZoom does not offer a free trial, but they do have multiple pricing plans, and as you can see, under their pricing plans, there is quite a bit of flexibility. You can get an NDA for as low as $14.95 a month, but you can also start filing an LLC for as low as $149 a month plus filing fees. Let's look at the breakdown a bit differently. Law Depot offers a free trial for one week where you can download any documents you want and as many as you want, but if you go with this option, pay attention to your emails because they'll automatically put you on a $33 a month plan if you miss their cutoff. Their prepaid yearly plan is only $12 a month, which is very affordable. Law Depot also has an a la carte option, which you can see here, where documents, single documents, can cost anywhere from $10 to $49 depending on the document type. If we look at LegalZoom, they don't offer any free trials, but they do have a monthly plan that starts at $7.99 with access to most of their documents, although you won't have access to some of the premium forms. You can also make a one-off purchase, and this depends on the form. Support and usability are key site features, especially when you're dealing with online legal forms. Obviously, you want everything to be incredibly easy to use and very accurate, so let's talk about usability first. Both sites are designed to work across all devices and operating systems, but they're not cloud-based, and what this means for the user is that you have to download all documents to sign them. In order to purchase forms from Law Depot, you first create a free online account. Then, when downloading the forms, you answer a series of questions, and these will pre-populate the form at the end so that your legal document has all your information in the appropriate places. You can then open the document, edit it, save it, print it, and share it. When you purchase a form on LegalZoom, you can download the document in a Word format. The form then comes with step-by-step instructions that make it easy to use, and it also has portions where they explain the law behind the questions they're asking you and make little notes about where you might want to customize in order to best fit with your business. Support is also a very key element when handling online legal documents. Let's take a look back at the Q Comparison chart. Here we have Law Depot on the left, LegalZoom on the right, and as you can see, in terms of methods of contacting their support team, you have access to live chat, phone, email, and a knowledge base for both sites. The knowledge base is anything from a blog to a frequently asked question form that will give you the answers that you need right away. However, the live chat, phone, and email is not accessible 24-7 or 365. They are mostly accessible during business hours, and this is why it's grayed out on this form. It's also important to remember that neither site is authorized to give legal advice. And what this means is that they give you access to the forms, but not necessarily how to customize them or check them over. However, LegalZoom on the right, you are able to get prepaid legal advice. So you'll have access to speak with a lawyer for a small fee, and they will help you check

Speaker 2: over the forms or answer any questions that you might have. So what does all this mean?

Speaker 1: Well, there's obviously a lot to consider when you're choosing between an online legal form service like Law Depot or LegalZoom, and you need to think about the pricing structure for each, but then also the types of forms that you'll need, how many you'll need, the type of support that you might want if you want advice from a lawyer. So this is how I would break it down. For example, pick Law Depot if you need many forms and, for example, you're starting a business and you want to download them within that first free trial week. It's an easy-to-use platform, and it's also important to keep in mind that with Law Depot you need to feel comfortable reviewing and filing your own documents without a lawyer. Therefore, it's probably great if you're growing your business and you need specific forms. Pick LegalZoom if you want the best monthly price for ongoing legal documents, if you want a customized pricing structure with additional support for some documents, and if you want to purchase help from a lawyer at a reasonable additional fee. I would probably recommend this site if you're starting a business. Thanks for watching our video, Law Depot vs. LegalZoom. If it was helpful, please like it, share it, and make comments. Also, stay tuned for our next video every other Thursday.

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