Websites Can Cut Cost of Some Legal Services

CHICAGO (TheStreet) -- No matter how great they are at multitasking, few owners can run their businesses completely solo. Almost every owner eventually has had to call in a professional to handle tasks outside his or her area of expertise, whether it's an accountant to sign off on tax returns, a computer tech to refresh a dated website or a plumber to fix a leaky bathroom sink.

For decades, paying for legal advice has been one of those impossible-to-avoid expenditures. If you wanted to run a reputable, aboveboard business, you had no choice but to hire a lawyer to draw up the necessary documents and contracts.

While business still need humans representing them in court, there are an increasing number of ways the Web is making legal help cheaper and easier.

But little by little lawyers have been losing their monopoly over the paperwork involved in opening a business. As do-it-yourself legal contracts become more widespread and lawyers face an ever-tightening job market, small-business owners should reap the benefits of more affordable legal services.

Certain business documents follow a set format and are easy to customize -- so why do you need a J.D. to fill them out? That's the idea behind the company LegalZoom, which sells a variety of business-related documents online. Forms that would have once taken hours of a lawyer's time to draw up and discuss can now be printed out from your office computer.

Forms available through LegalZoom include articles of incorporation, applications for state tax ID numbers and partnership agreements. The company also offers other specialized services, such as trademark searches or a customized business license compliance report, which gathers the license applications necessary for your business to operate legally in your state.

While legal documents follow strict formats, making them easy to reproduce, other legal services aren't so easy to replicate online. Say you want to know how to terminate an employee without opening yourself up to a lawsuit or need advice on fighting a potential copyright infringement. You can post your question online, but will you get reliable information back?