A startup aims to create standardized, configurable, and understandable legal documents through an online platform similar to Creative Commons for licensing. In its first weekend, the team launched a basic website, created a prototype non-disclosure agreement, and sketched plans for additional documents and a potential for-profit subsidiary to manage legal agreements. Next steps include expanding the collection of documents, building an online user community, and iterating based on feedback.

1. A not-for-profit entrepreneurial venture
startup business lubricant thingamajig
Strictly Confidential-ish.

2. legal

3. documents

4. suck.

5. nice

6. process

7. sucked less?

8. Why Legal
Documents Suck
•Legal documents demonstrate that
there are 100 ways to skin a cat
(no one wants to skin a cat)
•They’re a time-wasting, ego-feeding,
tree-killing, retainer-validating,
stultifyingly-obfuscating, bill-
padding, and needless tug of war.
(whoever wins, we lose*)
*that comes from some stupid movie somewhere

9. Legal Commons Provides
standard
and
human-readable
and
human-editable
contracts.

10. Goal →
Create standard, configurable, and
understandable Documents
a la Creative Commons License System
≈

11. Standard?
Q: How much material difference is
there between most standard business
contracts?
A: Not much.

12. Configurable?
•Yes, contracts are specific to
situation.
•So, let’s only worry about the “Not
much.”
(see the previous slide if you’re confused)

13. Understandable?
•Speak in plain english
•Back it up with legalese
•Use pictures

14. How does this
work?
Let’s give a demo:
http://commonslaw.com/

15. Weekend
Accomplishments
•Successfully stole borrowed remixed
creativecommons.org’s branding
•Launched website: commonslaw.org
•Created a logo that sort-of looks like
a wheelchair (according to jonathan)
•Created a working prototype for a
Non-Disclosure Agreement
•Sketched out For-Profit Subsidiary

16. What’s next?
•Codify (and code) additional legal
documents.
•Use it — build community
(New York Tech would be a great plate to
start... ahem.)
•Reach out to Laurence Lessig
(who happens to own legalcommons.org)
•Iterate!

17. (Sort-
of)Contingency
•Create a for-profit subsidiary to
manage legal handshakes and wet
signatures between legal entities.
(We’ve written a plan and pro-forma.
It features a hockey stick. It rocks.)

18. Team and Contact
http://commonslaw.org
Michael E. Gruen
Alexis N. Mueller
Alison Anthoine
Willis Chen
David W. Riordan
David A. Sampayo