I Will Not Tell You Where To Get Free Forms Online

“Greg,” a prospective client might ask me, “Where can I find a free online form to create my contract/document/will?”

“I don’t recommend doing that,” I would likely respond.

“But isn’t the democratization of the law something to celebrate?” they might retort. “Why are you against progress?”

Just to be clear, I’m not against the public having access to affordable and useful legal information (what do you think this blog is, after all?) and I’m very much in favor of people with genuine financial limitations having SOMETHING rather than nothing. So in a pinch, if you can’t afford a lawyer, a template document can be a useful tool.

But it’s true that I don’t like free online forms and don’t trust them. And if you’re not in dire financial straits, I don’t recommend using them. Why?

1. You don’t know what’s in them. The legalese in these forms can be confusing and because of that, the form might contain language that isn’t applicable to your situation, or worse, is actively harmful to your interests. I’ve seen first hand how badly this can go… several years ago I had a client who used an online form to license his work to another party. But because he selected the wrong form, he accidentally ended up selling the rights to his work outright and wasn’t able to get them back. There’s a reason lawyers spend so much time and money on schooling and then years working for other attorneys… to build up the knowledge base and skills needed to understand how to read and write these documents.

2. They’re not written for your needs. While forms can sometimes be a useful jumping off point, they can fail to address issues that are unique to your situation. Not all documents are made equal and you may require specific language in yours that a form can’t anticipate. And if you intend to use a contract template over and over again, there may be differences between your own clients that necessitate changes between contracts. For example, you may require different payment terms for different clients because one has proven to pay timely and reliably and another has proven to be delinquent. A form is designed to be a one-size fits all approach that may not be appropriate for you.

3. They can’t anticipate what you don’t know to look for. Let’s be honest. You don’t know what you don’t know. That’s why you hire a professional anytime something bad happens with your car, your house, your lower back, etc. Using a form that can’t anticipate your knowledge level means you could be leaving money on the table you didn’t know you had a right to; it could leave out important clauses that protect your interests and include clauses that harm you; it could result in ambiguous terms that neither party can understand; it could force you into arbitration when you’d rather use the court system. You may end up worse than you started because you didn’t know what to look for.

4. They may not be legally valid in your state. While many contract provisions are valid no matter where you live, some states have very specific rules regarding contract construction or formalities that a form may not pick up on. For example, if you are drafting a will, some states may require you to have it notarized and attested while others don’t. Some states may permit a contract to be modified while other states may forbid it. Failing to check your state's specific language requirements for documents may render them legally invalid.

I understand that attorneys are expensive and I also know there’s a subset of people who just want to DIY everything, but the benefit to having an attorney draft your document is that you’ll be able side-step these pitfalls while also having your needs met in real time. So no, I won’t tell you where to find free form templates online. Partly because I want you to pay me to do it for you, but largely because I want you to get it done right.

When Is It Okay to Write a Bad Review of a Client?

If I had a dime for every time a client complained to me that a customer violated a contract, well thankfully I’d only have like 50 cents. But still, it does happen. And when it does the client sometimes asks me if it’s okay to write a bad review online. That’s when I hesitate.

Whenever possible, You should never badmouth a party in public at all… yes even one who acts in bad faith. But if you’re absolutely going to do it no matter what, you should definitely wait until you’ve recouped what you’re owed (or as much of it as you can) from them and acquired a written history of their bad faith actions. Even then I’m hesitant to advise it. I’m a big fan of killing them with kindness no matter how badly you’re treated, because if you’re ever involved in a litigation, all of your communications will come out in discovery; you don’t want a judge or jury thinking YOU’RE the asshole in this transaction.

Most people don’t write bad reviews when they’re in a good frame of mind. They’re upset - understandably so - but not necessarily thinking clearly about the long-term effects of their actions. So it’s really easy for a person who has been harmed and is mad about it to overstep and accidentally defame the offending party. And the last thing you want is to be sued for defamation when you’re the victim.

There’s a fine line between warning people of bad faith operators and defamation. Defamation is defined as a statement to at least one other party about a person designed to ruin that person’s reputation. Usually the statement must also be false, but that is not a requirement in every state. When the defamatory statement is spoken, it is called slander, when it is written or otherwise recorded, it is called libel, but no matter what form it takes, the effect is the same. 

Your intent in making the statement also matters, as well as the defamed party’s public status… if the party is a public figure (politician, celebrity, etc), for example, your statement must be made with malicious intent, while a statement against a private figure must only be made with negligence. It’s also worth noting that simple name-calling is generally not considered defamation and statements of opinion might also not be considered defamatory (depending on context, of course) since they are harder to prove.

Here are some examples:

“Don’t work with John Smith Productions. They purposely stole my idea and cut me out of the production without paying me!” This is most likely defamation if the statement is false because it asserts as fact that the production company stole your work (on purpose, no less).

“I think John Smith Productions used my copyright without asking me.” Because this is a statement of opinion, it is less likely to be considered defamatory, though it wouldn’t necessarily prevent the production company from suing you anyway, especially if the statement is untrue.

“John Smith Productions is filled with conniving thieves and John Smith is the worst of them all!” Whether or not this is factually true, because this statement is merely name calling and doesn’t allege actual wrongdoing, this would not be considered defamatory.

What I tell people who are determined to write a bad review online is this: divorce yourself as much as you can from emotion. Statements of fact that you can actually back up with evidence are best. And of course, make sure that whatever you say is TRUE. When in doubt, be kind and truthful. Just because you were treated badly doesn’t mean you have to become the bad guy too.

Scamming The Scammers: How To Deal With Ambiguous Spam

My friend Adam is a professional illustrator and has been fending off spam emails like these for most of his professional life:

Now these are obviously scams, and like most of us Adam typically deletes them or sends them to his junk mail folder. But lately they've been getting more sophisticated and harder to spot, and Adam is concerned that more artists like himself may fall for them. Is there anything we can do to fight back?

I don't know how many artists fall for these types of schemes; I like to think most people are savvy enough to see through phishing attempts like this. But if the scams are getting better, they're more likely to convince someone to give up sensitive personal data. In today's political climate no one is looking out for artists. There’s a patchwork of federal and state laws such as the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 that ostensibly address commercial spam, unlawful solicitation, pornography, and various forms of computer crimes, but these laws are incomplete and often ineffective. The CAN-SPAM Act, which prohibits many types of commercial spam (but permits many others) itself has largely gone unenforced.

So if you wanted to take matters into your own hands, how could you do it? You could:

1. Report the spammers to a law enforcement agency;
2. Contact Anonymous or other white hat hacking groups;
3. Sue them if you can figure out who they are; or
4. Meet the scammers on their home turf and spam 'em right back.

Any of these options would feel satisfying. Turning the tables on your opponent usually is. But without money, time, or cyber-security know-how, most of these probably aren't all that realistic. And as for law enforcement, well as I said above, there's not much incentive these days to pursue Nigerian Prince-like schemes. There's another problem too. These spammers are a dime a dozen. Even if you successfully take one out, several more will spring up like a hydra. And let's not forget that many of them are attacking you from countries like Russia, China, and North Korea. Not exactly places where the U.S. has political capital.

The reality is that the best tool for fighting back against unwanted spam is education. It’s banal and not very satisfying for the vengeance-minded, but it does work… kind of how like comprehensive sex education contributes to lower teen pregnancy rates. So if one of these emails makes it through your spam filter and into your inbox, what should you look out for?

Poor Grammar and Spelling. Not every prospective buyer writes English well, but the wonky grammar in these emails tend to be a dead giveaway that you’re reading something written by a bot and not a person. Some of these emails can be well-written though, so be extra vigilant about that.

Lack of Specificity. Spam emails like the ones above tend to have few details about the buyer and demonstrate little or no knowledge of you and your work. You may get some generic compliments or odd bits of personal information designed to throw you off the scent, like “I saw my wife looking at your website” or “I’m moving to Australia.” But spam tends to largely be devoid of specificity and humanity.

Lack of Common Sense. These emails tend to ask for information that is easily and readily available and takes little common sense to find. As you can see, all three emails above ask Adam for information about purchasing his art... information that’s available on his website, which is easily Googleable. If this person had done enough investigating to find his email address, they certainly would have found his website. Oftentimes, they’ll offer to buy a work without asking the price or how to properly ship the work.

Bad or Incomplete Contact Information. Spam and phishing emails often give strange looking or contradictory email addresses. They rarely provide mailing addresses or phone numbers. In the event they do, the address is often an international one and/or improperly organized (like forgetting to put a state or zip code) and the phone numbers often have an incorrect number of digits or are international numbers. 

Questionable Payment Options. Spammers are usually trying to get personal identifying information or access to your bank or credit accounts. They may ask for your PayPal account or bank information. Periodically, as in the emails above, they’ll offer personal checks or cashiers checks. The offer of a cashiers or bank check is especially curious as those checks are conventionally understood to be backed by a bank. If it’s a bank you’ve never heard of, do some research and find out if it’s legit. 

There are some other things you can look out for as well. It should be said that even if the email contains some of these issues, the buyer could be real, so do some digging - find out who this person is - and use your common sense.

Under no circumstances should you EVER ship the work to the buyer until A) you’re confident it’s a real person and B) payment clears. And if there’s any doubt, just send it right into your junk mail folder and don’t give it a second thought. You’re too busy to spend your time trying to figure out if a buyer is a real person who wants to buy your work.