Quicken Lawyer 2003 Business Deluxe

After installing Quicken Lawyer 2003 Business, you can choose to brush up on your "legalese" or jump right into the program. The Quicken Lawyer 2003 Business library contains reading material on starting and running a small business, legal forms for small businesses, an employer's legal handbook, marketing without advertising, and leasing space for a small business. You can also link to Web sites like Nolo.com's Small Business Law Center and Quicken.com's Small Business Center.

Quicken Lawyer 2003 Business includes a wide variety of business document templates, including documents for hiring, buying and selling real estate or goods and equipment, borrowing money, renting office space, contracts, and more. Titles of documents contained within the program include Amendment to Contract (General), Assignment of Lease, Bill of Sale for Business Assets, Confidentiality Agreement, Consent of Directors, Corporate Bylaws, and many more.

New features in the 2003 version include a new interface redesigned to be easier to use, interactive forms using an interview format, Web updates to make sure you have the most recent version of the program, and a new book, Leasing Space for Your Small Business, by Fred Steingold and Janet Portman.

All Quicken Lawyer programs do advise that you consult an expert on sensitive matters such as these. When you print out any documents, they include the following language: "No general form is a substitute for personalized advice from a knowledgeable lawyer licensed to practice law in your state." With this in mind, Quicken Lawyer 2003 Business can help you do some of your own initial work and cut down on attorney's fees. --Kendra Hayden

Amazon.com Product Description
When you start and run a business, most of the legal work involved simply requires reliable information and the proper forms. With Quicken Lawyer 2003 Business Deluxe, you'll get everything you need to get the job done and save money on legal fees. Completely updated, Quicken Lawyer now provides over 130 contracts, forms, letters, and checklists. You'll also get over 60 interactive forms, and the complete text of Nolo's bestselling book Leasing Space for Your Small Business.

Quicken Lawyer helps you select the best legal structure for your business, draft solid business contracts, get required documents, and minimize the chance of legal disputes. Choose from over 130 essential forms, letters, checklists, and more. Many of them are interactive--just complete a step-by-step interview, print the results, and you're done. You can also use Quicken Lawyer to hire workers, develop sensible personnel policies, minimize employee lawsuits, stay out of trouble with the government, and safely terminate workers when necessary.

Quicken Lawyer helps you identify deductions allowed by the IRS, write off long-term business assets, and minimize the chance of an audit. You can also use the program to negotiate a lease for your office space, bargain for lower security deposits, share costs for repairs and expansion, and more.

So I turned to Quicken Lawyer -- what a difference a software package can make! Each time I wanted a form it took me through a series of questions and answers, and whenever I had a problem or questions I could find answers in the sidebars. Best of all my attorney couldn't find any errors, he just confirmed that I wanted what I was stating in the documents! I can't recommend this package enough. Never has a single purchase seemed so valuable.


Solid, User Friendly, Great for Straightforward Situations   June 2, 2003
66 out of 69 found this review helpful

BOTTOM LINE: Quicken Lawyer Personal ('QLP') is a great, low-cost alternative to hiring a lawyer to prepare your basic estate planning document, which will run you a minimum of several hundred dollars. It takes just minutes to prepare a will, but its legal manual/support resources are extensive enough for those that want to spend much more time understanding the what/why behind their documents.

QLP is published by Nolo Press, a well established publisher of self-help legal books. QLP begins by walking you through a number of typical life-stage situations (i.e. young w/ no kids, married w/ kids, etc.) and comes up with a list of suggested documents and along the way explains why you might need each of these documents. When creating a particular document, the software writes all of the legal language for you - you do not write a single word of legalese - and docs are tailored to each state's requirements. To get information from you and have you make decisions about the content/structure of your documents, QLP follows the typical "interview" format - easy to use and informative along the way. My wife and I each created wills, healthcare directives and powers of attorney in about an hour or two.

PROS:
- Ease of use: idiot-proof interview format
- Legal help: good offline manual, good resources at Nolo website
- Clear execution information: tells you exactly what each document needs to be put into effect (some need notarization, some need just witnesses)
- Address book: enter a person's info (i.e. your spouse) and don't need to enter again in other parts of same doc or other docs

QLP is primarily estate planning software. It has a few of the most important ancillary documents (Child Care Agreement, Limited POA for Finances), but Kiplinger's Home Attorney and Broderbund's Family Attorney have a full complement of general use form documents. However, if you look through these lists, most are either not really necessary (Trip Permission Slip you can write yourself on scrap of paper or school gives it to you) or are better left to professionals unless you know exactly what you are doing (i.e. residential real estate sales contract and home services contract - too much legalese in there to just print, drop your name in and sign!?).

COMPETITORS: As mentioned above, Kiplinger's Home Attorney and Broderbund's Family Attorney have a more extensive list of docs (many of which you'll never need IMHO). Home Attorney came preloaded on my computer so had a chance to try it -- not nearly as user friendly, kind of clunky and actually makes you edit the document to enter your name, county, etc - this scares me. Don't have Family Attorney so can't comment on its ease of use, sorry. If you really need a ton of general use forms, get Home Attorney or Family Attorney - otherwise stick with Quicken.

GET A LAWYER IF: While QLP functions well as an advisor, telling you when you might need certain documents or even specific provisions within documents, it has its limits and is candid enough to admit it during the interviews/tutorials. Get a lawyer for situations like: you expect to owe federal estate taxes ($1.5 million limit in 2003 and going up rapidly), you own a small business or you expect to have a messy family situation upon death (i.e. an ex-spouse or children that don't get along) or live in a community property state.


Great educational product, no substitute for a lawyer though   March 8, 2003
C. Chu
56 out of 58 found this review helpful

I used this product to practice writing up my will, my living trust and estate planning documents. It has very good online help, and explains the terminologies, includes checklists, and answers a lot of legal questions. This product will save you time with a real lawyer (who charges by the hour), in that you don't have to ask the real basic questions, since you've already been tutored. The will generated is perfectly legal, but I would advice using a lawyer for more complicated documents. The checklists and the instructions to give to your executor are great, because you can list all of the details you'd want someone to know about in case you are gone.

As others have stated, there was no promised rebate coupon in the box.


Great product!   October 18, 2002
50 out of 50 found this review helpful

I bought this product and have been *very* happy with it. I was able to do wills for both my wife and I in the matter of an afternoon for less than [$] bucks. I found the interface of the program extremely user friendly and easy to understand. Also, it is loaded with legal info about all kinds of stuff including legal definitions of terms, which I found useful since most legal jargon is unreadable by me. It is just a fantastic product all around.


Feeling great about my coffee house now!   August 22, 2002
23 out of 25 found this review helpful

As a entrepreneur opening a coffee house, I was a bit worried because frankly I didn't know ANYTHING about starting my own business. All the paperwork, where to get money, how to get permits and all that. But this software is like a library of information (it includes six business books, I believe), and it helps you fill out forms one field at a time. I feel really organized and on top of things now.