The idea behind LegalZoom was to help small businesses and individuals with their legal needs. The LegalZoom service is best suited for small businesses, startups, and individuals who don’t have an in-house legal department but need regular legal assistance. As a part of the LegalZoom services, they have a network of attorneys who can provide expert legal advice, attorney consultations, and legal reviews. In many cases, these legal services are more suited for small businesses and startups operating on a strict budget.
LegalZoom is an online platform for small businesses and individuals, mainly providing legal advice and legal help. The LegalZoom platform was founded in 1999, and by 2003, they have served close to 100K users, now having over 4 million users in the US alone.
The platform has an exciting set of services that can help a small business or an individual with their legal needs and expert legal advice from lawyers. Here I’ll be taking a much closer look at the LegalZoom platform and its services.
Editor’s note: LegalZoom has been around since 1999, and in this time, this legal platform has helped over 4 million users. It proves that the founders had the right idea in creating a platform that caters to the basic legal needs of small businesses and individuals. The LegalZoom services are well-balanced, but some of them come at a higher price point. However, when in need of basiclegal help and simple legal documents, LegalZoom is a great option if you don’t like hiring lawyers.
The LegalZoom platform was designed by an ambitious group of attorneys, business leaders, and visionaries who believe that quality initial legal help should be available for everybody. The founders’ goal was to make legal help accessible to the average American citizens, and they were reasonably successful, as LegalZoom is among the best platforms of this type.
The main LegalZoom features include business formation tools, estate plan creation, intellectual property, and attorney advice. The legal services are arranged by type and include the following:
Business Formation Services
Business Names
Taxes, Licenses, and Permits
Trademark, Patent, and Copyright
Legal Forms and Agreements
Corporate Changes and Filings
Business Compliance
Additional Business Services
Real Estate Services
Wills, Trusts, and Family Legal Services
Estate Planning Products
Marriage and Divorce
Real Estate and Finance Legal Services
Attorney Advice
Speak with an Attorney
Attorney-prepared services
As you can note, the LegalZoom services are well-balanced and cover the basic legal needs of startups and small businesses. In addition, the platform has a 100% satisfaction guarantee in place, offering a 60-day refund fee for anyone unhappy with the LegalZoom services.
LegalZoom does not have an all-inclusive or per-set pricing plan in place. Instead, the LegalZoom prices depend on the legal needs of each user. However, here is an overview of the most popular services and their prices:
As you can see here, LegalZoom does not have any set pricing plans. Instead, the LegalZoom clients pay only for the services they use. This way, the clients can select and pay for the services they genuinely need and are not forced to pay for a pre-set set of services.
All LegalZoom clients are privy to the LegalZoom online resource base that has articles on the most pressing needs of the LegalZoom clients. Additionally, all clients can schedule a call with their US-based customer care agents to resolve any possible issue.
In the table below, I’ve compared the features of three online legal services; I’ve used their business formation service as a base for comparison. You can see here that LegalZoom has the most expensive business formation plan, but it comes with expert attorney help, something the other two services lack.
| BASE PRICE | PLAN | ADVANTAGES | LIMITATIONS | |
| LegalZoom | $79 + state filing fees | Company formation, intellectual property protection, custom legal forms | Excellent customer support, excellent legal services | Lengthy processing time, expensive yearly upkeep |
| LegalNature | $39 + state fee | Legal documents of any kind, business formation, business management software | All legal documents in one place, excellent customer support, nicely organized service packages | Services get expensive very fast, many additional up-sells |
| IncFile | $0+state fee | Company formation, annual compliance, free registered agent for a year | Very affordable prices, next-day processing, free registered agent service for a year, simple ordering process | Limited services, no extensive legal services, slow customer service |
Here I’ll compare the services of LegalZoom against LegalNature and IncFile. Among their many services, we are mainly interested in their business-related services, and we’ll be taking a closer look at these. LegalZoom and LegalNature have very similar services, including business formation and many other legal services, whereas IncFile has only business formation and business-related services.
LegalZoom does not offer a pre-set pricing plan, just like LegalNature. Instead, each service has a different price, and the final price the customer pays depends solely on the services they use. For example, the LegalZoom business formation service plan starts at $79 plus the state filing fees.
As opposed to this, IncFile has several pricing plans with pre-set features, all aimed towards the business formation and other business services. Also, LegalNature charges $39 + state filing fees for the same business formation service. However, LegalZoom offers professional attorney consultations, while LegalNature and IncFile do not have any such services.
LegalZoom has professional customer service in place with US-based customer agents and a fast response rate. Unlike this service, LegalNature and IncFile have good customer services, but many users have noted that these could use significant improvement.
The table here offers an overview of the features and services of these three online legal services. You can note the differences and ratings of each of them and more easily decide which one is best suited for your needs.
| BRAND | CUSTOMER SERVICE | RANGE OF SERVICES | RANGE OF LEGAL DOCUMENTS | PRICE FOR BUSINESS FORMATION | SPEED OF BUSINESS FORMATION |
| LegalZoom | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3.5 |
| LegalNature | 5 | 4.5 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| IncFile | 4 | 3.5 | 2 | 5 | 5 |
User experience is a crucial feature of any platform, and LegalZoom has an excellent user experience. At the time of writing this review, LegalZoom had a 4.1-star rating on Trustpilot. It may not be the most stellar rating, but the primary notes were related to the service agents’ responses.
The platform has an excellent design, white background, black letters, and light blue highlights. You don’t need anything special to use: visit the official LegalZoom website and select the services you need. For example, let’s discuss their business formation service: open the LegalZoom website, select the business formation option and the type of business you wish to register.
Once you check the availability of the name you wish to call your business, you’ll need to enter the state where you wish to register your business and then follow the step-by-step guide on the screen and select the options that are adequate for you. I’ve captured some screenshots from the registration process and the additional up-sell options LegalZoom offers. However, you are free to select the features that best suit your needs.
From this, you can see the simplicity of use of the LegalZoom platform. When it comes to the use of the other legal services, LegalZoom is also very user-friendly. Legal documents and forms are also a part of the LegalZoom services, and the platform offers more than 150 legal documents and forms for business and personal use. These can be easily created on the platform, customized per your needs, and saved, printed, or downloaded into pdf format.
US-based customer agents operate the LegalZoom customer service. The LegalZoom customer agents are based in the USA and are available from Monday to Friday from 5 AM to 7 PM and on weekends from 7 AM and 4 PM Pacific Time. Many users have reported that they have a positive experience with the LegalZoom customer agents, while some people have said that they found their customer service agents slow and unhelpful.
Apart from the live customer agent support, LegalZoom has an extensive FAQ section on the official website. In addition, there is also a knowledge center and a page with legal help articles. All of these contain plenty of information on the LegalZoom services and the use of the platform.
From the online reviews I read on LegalZoom, most users find that LegalZoom is very suited for their needs. Many of these have stated that they find this service simple and in line with the basic legal needs of small businesses and individuals.
LegalZoom has a 60-day satisfaction guarantee. If a customer of LegalZoom is not satisfied with the platform’s services, they can ask for a refund of the fees paid to the platform within 60 days. Any of the fees paid for state and federal filing fees are not eligible for a refund.
LegalZoom is among the oldest online legal service platforms. The LegalZoom features are designed to help small businesses and individuals with their basic legal needs. The services include business creation, estate plan creation, intellectual property protection, legal documents and forms, and live attorney advice.
From everything I’ve learned about LegalZoom, its services are well-rounded for the needs of a small business or an individual. While some of the services are on the expensive side and the business formation service is relatively slow compared to its main competitors, LegalZoom is a good option when you need basic legal help without hiring an in-house lawyer.
This app literally changed my like. It provides a great experience. I absolutely love it!
Daniel Lewis is an MBA accredited investment professional who wants to assist small business owners to gain access to finance. After going through many channels for funding, Lewis has found that getting the first loan right is vitally important for future success.
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