LegalZoom Reviewer's Comments

Imagine a legal service, which provides you with an easy–to–answer questionnaire, double checks your forms and in some cases will even file your documents for you. That is exactly what the “TopTenREVIEWS Bronze Award” winning legal service, LegalZoom, does.

LegalZoom focuses on its complete legal service preparation system. After answering a questionnaire regarding your legal matter, LegalZoom will then review your submitted forms checking for consistency, spelling and other common errors. Your forms are mailed directly to you containing instructions about signing and notarizing and instructions about how to make your documents official.

LegalZoom's full service preparation system is their main focus; unfortunately, it is only available with select legal subjects. However, LegalZoom is affiliated with our #1 service, US Legal, and provides a large number of do–it–yourself legal forms.

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Forms:  

There are two ways to participate in LegalZooms services. For a number of select categories, LegalZoom will fully review and check your legal documents for you. For copyrights, corporation, LLCs, DBAs and Trademarks, LegalZoom will file all the paper work for you. In other cases, you will be mailed a hard copy of your forms with instructions on how to make your forms official and legal.

LegalZoom's selection of full preparation forms is limited; therefore, they are affiliated with our #1 service, US Legal, to supplement your other legal form needs. The “more” option in the drop–down box, will take you to a list of US Legal’s traditional do–it–yourself legal forms and do not come with LegalZooms preparation services.

Features Set:  

LegalZoom offers a long list of legal resources to assist you in your legal matters. Their main focus is their preparation services. These services are designed to make your legal documentation process as painless as possible. In addition to preparation services, LegalZoom also offers an extensive legal guide and lawyer referrals.

The legal guides are generally focused around the same forms offered through the preparation services. A drop down box provides you with more than a dozen legal topics from copyrights to US citizenship. The left side bar provides you with a list of topics within your chosen category. For example, if you were to choose green cards, the side bar would include explanations about procedures, rules and required paperwork. Below there is also an FAQ section for each topic. Although there is only a small selection of legal topics available, LegalZoom’s legal guide was more descriptive and informative than any other service we reviewed.

Additionally, they include a phone a lawyer feature to assist you in your legal process. For $3 a minute, you can speak to a lawyer and receive legal advice. If your legal matter is too complicated, there is also a link to assist you in finding a lawyer in your area called “Get a Lawyer.”

Ease of Use:  

LegalZoom is very easy to use. Their preparation services are designed to be simple and straightforward. All you have to do is fill in the required fields.

Since most of LegalZooms focus is on its preparation services, it is a little difficult to find the standard do–it–yourself forms. If you are looking for forms not requiring preparation services, go to the drop–down box labeled “Choose a Procedure” on LegalZoom’s home page. At the bottom of the list, choose “more.” This is where all US Legal’s forms are located. You can then search for your particular forms using keywords.

Installation/Setup:  

If you decide to use LegalZoom’s preparation services, there is nothing to download and nothing to format. LegalZoom does it all for you. However, if you choose to download one of the standard forms they are available in Word, PDF or RTF files. These can then be edited to fit your legal needs.

LegalZoom’s preparation services are typically more expensive than the usual downloadable forms. This price includes your form review, shipping costs and a 30–day retention of your document. Payments are accepted by check, phone or credit card.

Help/Support:  

LegalZoom provide both telephone and email support. They also have an FAQ section which will answer most of your questions regarding payment and preparation.

In order to test some of LegaZoom’s features, we had to fill in some of the forms. After about two days, we received an email reminding us to complete the process and offered a 15% discount.

Summary:  

LegalZoom provides a complete legal service which walks you through the process from start to finish. This was the only service we found that offered to file any paperwork or mail your forms to you without specific request. The only thing holding this service back is the number of fully preoperational forms offered.