What is the background to LawEasier and how long has it taken to create an innovative legal based product offer for UK companies?

Research released around 18 months ago by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA), suggested that on average a business has eight legal requirements per year but only one in ten use a solicitor when perhaps they should. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that price is a major factor with the average lawyer charging upwards of £280 per hour.

We identified that many businesses would seek advice from other sources such as friends or accountants, some would use search engines to find answers, some would overwrite old contracts or copy and paste from elsewhere and some would just ignore the issue.

With nine out of ten businesses possibly unprotected by the law, or worse in breach of it, we wanted to do something to help.

After over a year of planning we ‘soft-launched' LawEasier in October 2017 and we have been so excited by the reaction.

Given the company's name it begs the question as to how do you make law easier?

We use some clever technology to cut out the expensive lawyer part as much as possible. Our service is mostly delivered online and is a combination of searchable plain-English legal guides and a form of AI that asks the questions that a lawyer would and creates legal documents for you. The system explains everything at every step and you can always speak to one of our lawyers if you have a query. Being online means you can access legal support when you want and not just during law firm office hours. We work on a subscription basis which starts at just  £35+ vat pm which gives you unlimited access to the guides, online advice and as many documents as your business needs. You can't get much easier than that.

Do you specialise in a specific size company or have turnover criteria?

We are mostly trying to help small businesses and start-ups where cashflow may be tight as these are often the ones that leave themselves unprotected and don't see the value in using solicitors. For example, something as important as a shareholder's agreement can cost £1,250-£1,750 + vat which is a lot of money to find when you start out. Luckily it is one of the hundreds of legal documents you can create in your £35 + vat pm membership of LawEasier.

What level of legal expertise are potential members accessing when they contact your company?

The business is the culmination of 150 years of legal expertise and 10 years of technology development, so members can be assured that they are in the very best hands. We offer a telephone advice line so that members can discuss issues with our lawyers, who can also check documents and make sure that they do what you need them to do.

There are some areas of the law that LawEasier can't help with such as litigation or property transactions, so we have teamed up with a UK top 200 law firm who provides this expertise at a discounted rate for our members.

How does it work, and what happens if the law changes, such as the new GDPR data protection laws coming into force this May?

To be honest the technology involved in the assisted document creation system is far cleverer then I am, but the interface is so simple that if you know how to log on to a website, you can use LawEasier. No legal knowledge is needed, and we also have a legal healthcheck that asks a few questions about your business and then tells you what documents you should have and what the risks are if you don't.

Our content team are constantly monitoring any changes to the law and updating the guides and documents to make sure that you can't create an out of date document. GDPR has been much talked about but there is still some ambiguity around it. We're in the process of updating our documents for GDPR, including our privacy and cookie policy for a website and a new GDPR-compliant policy for our employee handbook, as well as creating new privacy notices for other contexts.

Even if businesses join LawEasier for GDPR they will be saving thousands versus using a traditional law firm.

There are plenty of legal situations where a company director would seek advice or guidance but what would you say are the main and most frequent reasons where expert advice is needed by the smaller UK business?

Without a doubt the biggest area of use of our service is for employment law. LawEasier provides information and documents helping you deal with and manage a range of employment issues including employee rights, discipline and dismissal, employment agreements, employee handbooks and much more. As the legislation regarding hiring and managing staff becomes ever more complicated, the only way to protect your business is to make sure you have the right policies and paperwork in place.

Last year the fees for bringing an employer to a tribunal were deemed to be unlawful and were stopped. It is expected that businesses will see a huge rise in tribunal claims this year so many of our members are making sure that their employment contracts, handbooks, policies and procedures are up to date to offer them maximum protection.

We also look after a number of creative businesses who are interested in protecting their intellectual property. Our system not only gives advice on how to protect your ideas and design rights, it creates non-disclosure agreements and LawEasier sends cease & desist letters on behalf of our members included in the £35 + vat pm membership.

We think we've made the law more affordable and more accessible for small businesses and we are pretty pleased with ourselves as a result.

For more information contact: Jason Edge
www.laweasier.co.uk, hello@laweasier.co.uk, 0800 112 3435