Full disclosure: Actual flesh-and-blood lawyer here.
These tools are great when things are going well. If you are a business for whom lawyers are an inconvenient expense, paperwork devoid of real value, then go ahead and download your legal advice. You'll probably be fine with boilerplate legal documents. But realize that as with the concept of 'technical debt' you might be pushing off minor expenses today in exchange for huge expenses tomorrow. That can be a valid startup strategy only IF you remain cognisant of the associated risk.
Two things could happen. First, things might hit the legal fan. Your now large business will be in need of some actual lawyering but you won't have worked with anyone. You don't want to be googling "IP lawyers in my area" the day some troll's demand letter arrives. You want someone who knows you and your business.
The far far worse option is that things don't hit the fan. You could go for years blissfully unaware of the damoclean sword over your head. But the sword never falls, the business grows, and eventually you want to take things to the next level (IPO/buyout/new investors). Then you meet your first lawyer and he or she isn't working for you. I've been that lawyer walking into a room of wannabe millionaires who think they have all their legal ducks in a row. I write a memo to my client about some gaping legal hole I've found, and the next thing you know all that money goes away. You'll probably never learn why those potential investors stopped calling.
Common big holes:
Bad/fraudulent PII/PCI compliance.
Improper labor practices (common when everyone is working their first real job).
Poor or absent organization structure.
Failure to abide applicable foreign laws.
Tax fraud due to reliance on tax-filing software.
Failure to properly protect IP.
"Creative" accounting practices.
Lack of industry-standard security measures.
And my personal favourite: Onerous contractual/financial obligations due to failure to seek adequate legal advice at time.
You absolutely raised some valid concerns. And I hope, I hope, I hope that startups aren't using these templates as-is (or possibly at all). Each company's business operations, policies, risk tolerance, etc. will be different and their standard contracts need to reflect those positions. They need to have lawyers write the agreements/policies/etc. to make sure they're following all applicable laws.
However, I think that Ironclad (and possibly others) are trying to make the administration of those contracts easier. Real trouble, from a business perspective, comes when the company gets bigger and they don't know the risk on their books because they can't manage their contracts.
I don't think these tools will cut out the lawyers, but instead help the companies manage their contracts and be able to better use us lawyers.
I'm all for anything that gets people to pay attention to legal obligations. I do agree that many lawyers are inefficient and could be helped by automated tools. But I know of many, such as MY lawyer, who are very reasonable.
I do see many companies who don't know how to use lawyers. They do things like ask outside counsels to attend on-site meetings in person. Or they lie, forcing the lawyer to do things five or six times based on new information they pull out each cycle.
These tools are great when things are going well. If you are a business for whom lawyers are an inconvenient expense, paperwork devoid of real value, then go ahead and download your legal advice. You'll probably be fine with boilerplate legal documents. But realize that as with the concept of 'technical debt' you might be pushing off minor expenses today in exchange for huge expenses tomorrow. That can be a valid startup strategy only IF you remain cognisant of the associated risk.
Two things could happen. First, things might hit the legal fan. Your now large business will be in need of some actual lawyering but you won't have worked with anyone. You don't want to be googling "IP lawyers in my area" the day some troll's demand letter arrives. You want someone who knows you and your business.
The far far worse option is that things don't hit the fan. You could go for years blissfully unaware of the damoclean sword over your head. But the sword never falls, the business grows, and eventually you want to take things to the next level (IPO/buyout/new investors). Then you meet your first lawyer and he or she isn't working for you. I've been that lawyer walking into a room of wannabe millionaires who think they have all their legal ducks in a row. I write a memo to my client about some gaping legal hole I've found, and the next thing you know all that money goes away. You'll probably never learn why those potential investors stopped calling.
Common big holes: Bad/fraudulent PII/PCI compliance. Improper labor practices (common when everyone is working their first real job). Poor or absent organization structure. Failure to abide applicable foreign laws. Tax fraud due to reliance on tax-filing software. Failure to properly protect IP. "Creative" accounting practices. Lack of industry-standard security measures.
And my personal favourite: Onerous contractual/financial obligations due to failure to seek adequate legal advice at time.