Electronic lawyers - Teneron's LegalPoint and Parsons Technology's It's Legal CD-ROM Deluxe Edition 5.1 - Software Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, March, 1995 by Robin Hoffman

Rating:***1/2

LegalPoint

Version Reviewed: 1.0

List Price: $99

Average Street Price: $69

Publisher: Teneron, (913) 451-3663, (800) 529-5669

Whether you're hiring an employee, offering your services as an independent contractor, or taking on a partner, you'll have to deal with legally binding contracts. And even though keeping an attorney on retainer is usually too expensive for a small-business owner, handling legal chores on your own isn't the wisest move, either. Two products--Parsons Technology's It's Legal and Teneron's LegalPoint--ease this burden while keeping your legal fees down, something all of us could use.

It's Legal provides 54 document templates, customized for each state, including bill of sale, consent forms, leases, and promissory notes. Though It's Legal offers an ample selection of business templates, the balance tips more toward documents that affect your personal life, such as power of attorney, credit card inquiries, and living trusts.

With It's Legal, you enter information either by filling in a template or by conducting an "interview," in which you answer a set of questions based on the type of document you've selected. The handy Make It Legal screen appears when you complete a document and provides assistance for verification and record-keeping.

Also, It's Legal's personal information default automatically places your company or personal information in every document. Changing default settings is simply a matter of clicking the Personal button at the top of the screen or pressing F2.

Parsons has beefed up the online help in this version of It's Legal. While completing a document, simply click on the Legal Guide button and receive answers to questions pertaining to the type of document you're working on. A bonus on the lt's Legal CD-ROM Deluxe version is The Plain Language Law Dictionary, which contains more than 6,500 legal terms with truly understandable definitions for those not well versed in legalese.

Whereas It's Legal's focus is slightly skewed toward your personal affairs, LegalPoint is aimed squarely at the small-business owner, offering templates for financial, corporate, technology, employment, and sale/purchase of goods contracts. LegalPoint also has the edge in quantity, providing more than 70 documents.

LegalPoint features a familiar word processor-style interface that you can configure to look like either Microsoft Word or AmiPro, so editing and customizing your documents is a simple affair. Like It's Legal, LegalPoint offers a considerable number of help features, so you never have to worry about entering the wrong information.

The context-sensitive Busniess Law guide provides explanations to important subjects, such as antitrust laws, product marketing, partnerships, and securities, as well as regulations on home offices, including zoning laws, insurance restrictions, and tax issues. Besides offering a larger selection of documents than It's Legal, LegalPoint also contains more extensive background literature that provides you with a better understanding of the legal concepts you're dealing with.

You shouldn't expect either package to make you an expert in legal matters. Both Parsons and Teneron advise you to seek legal counsel to review your documents. The idea is to help you spend less time and money in a lawyer's office. In this respect, both packages succeed.

About Our Ratings

  The One-to-four-star
ratings are based on           *          Poor
performance, features,         **         Fair
setup, ease of learning
and use, availability,         ***        Good
warranty support,              ****       Excellent
doucmentation, and price.