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Quicken Lawyer

Quicken Lawyer is geared toward small business owners who would like to save some money by preparing their own initial legal documents. While you may or may not eventually choose to consult an attorney for the finished product, you can certainly invest your own time with this program to do the initial preparation work.

After installing Quicken Lawye, you can choose to brush up on your "legalese" or jump right into the program. The Quicken Lawyer library contains reading material on starting and running a small business, legal forms for small businesses, an employer's legal handbook, marketing without advertising, and leasing space for a small business. You can also link to Web sites like Nolo.com's Small Business Law Center and Quicken.com's Small Business Center.

Quicken Lawyer includes a wide variety of business document templates, including documents for hiring, buying and selling real estate or goods and equipment, borrowing money, renting office space, contracts, and more. Titles of documents contained within the program include Amendment to Contract (General), Assignment of Lease, Bill of Sale for Business Assets, Confidentiality Agreement, Consent of Directors, Corporate Bylaws, and many more.

New features in the 2003 version include a new interface redesigned to be easier to use, interactive forms using an interview format, Web updates to make sure you have the most recent version of the program, and a new book, Leasing Space for Your Small Business, by Fred Steingold and Janet Portman.

All Quicken Lawyer programs do advise that you consult an expert on sensitive matters such as these. When you print out any documents, they include the following language: "No general form is a substitute for personalized advice from a knowledgeable lawyer licensed to practice law in your state." With this in mind, Quicken Lawyer 2003 Business can help you do some of your own initial work and cut down on attorney's fees.