The LexPublica Blog

Yesterday morning I went on CBC Radio’s Early Edition with Rick Cluff for a conversation about LexPublica.

As always happens, I left the interview thinking about some points I wish I’d mentioned. Here’s a clip of the conversation (provided by CBC) and here are the top points I would add:

1. In essence, LexPublica is similar to Wikipedia for contracts and law. While our initial focus is on simple contracts for small businesses, our vision is to become the reference source for contracts and legal knowledge.
2. Millions of people already handle their own contracts and legal affairs without the benefit of any decent information on the topic. LexPublica isn’t a substitute for a lawyer. Rather, LexPublica fills a gap in legal help for small businesses who want to understand a contract issue and may choose to handle the contract themselves – or in some cases, may conclude that they do wish to retain a lawyer (for example, because a legal matter is more complex than they had anticipated).
3. In addition to providing users with background legal information for contracts, LexPublica provides other indicators that help non-lawyers assess whether to trust LexPublica and to decide whether a contract is right for them. For example, our community of lawyer and non-lawyer participants uses a structured process to create contracts, with that work being open and visible to the public. In addition, we will be providing a revision history of contracts, so users can see the evolution of a particular contract. We believe this open approach to contract creation offers valuable context in making a choice about the suitability of a contract.