5 Essential Legal Tools To Manage Your Agency

When working on a huge, prestigious project or an account, the last thing agencies and freelancers need is to focus on pertinent legal issues that may come up instead of focusing on the job. Even when they do not want to think about legalities, it is imperative to know about certain legal tools that protect their professional interests.

It is an art to balance a strong relationship with the clients while at the same time keeping the agency protected. These legal tools will help to prevent conflicts and surprises down the road.

Here are a few legal tools that every agency must use to protect itself:

LegalZoom

LegalZoom has been around for more than 12 years now and has ever since helped about 2 million businesses, including families, with appropriate legal solutions. The best thing about the tool is that agencies and freelancers can use a range of functionalities.

Some of the tools that facilitate services include trademark applications, filing for bankruptcy, creating a trust, writing a will and testament, and more. The tool specifically caters to the small business and family business niche. There is more to the tool - it offers an all-encompassing legal solution that helps start and grow a business.

For example, during the start of a Limited Liability Corporation, there is a range of legalities that firms need to be compliant with - LegalZoom is one platform with built-in features that cover the entire legal gamut of LLC formation.

Similarly, the tools help with filing a DBA or forming a corporation, copyright and patent applications, and more. A key feature to note about LegalZoom is that agencies and users can speak to a professional lawyer and tax expert. The objective is to make it easy and simple for small and family-owned businesses to start their operations and thrive.

Bonsai

Bonsai is the go-to legal tool for agency owners & freelancers. The tool has been created by two developers and it helps agencies and freelancers with contract creation and invoicing features. With the rising culture of WFH, tools like Bonsai make life easy and seamless.

Creating a legally binding contract can be a bit difficult without the help of lawyers. Also, invoicing and payment collection are two other areas of concern for agency owners. A legal tool like Bonsai can help you save time and money by making their contract legally foolproof.

HelloSign

Digital signatures are fast becoming the new way of life for the business community. While many agencies and freelancers still believe in using Microsoft Paint to scribble their signatures, it is not official.

The essence of digital signatures lies in the fact that such signatures are professional, legally binding, and secure. You need a tool that is compliant with the laws of the land - that is where Hello Sign comes into the picture. The tool is compliant with laws like ESIGN, UETA, eIDAS, etc.

It encrypts the signature, making it all secure and safe. HelloSign offers Bank-level security with SSL encryption, user permissions to make the signature visible to only authorized people, and time-stamped court permissible audit trails. Agencies need to sign up for a free trial and create a HelloSign account.

Termsfeed

This tool is a must-use for agencies and freelancers designing and developing web pages and mobile apps. The tool helps in the automatic generation of Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Return & Refund, Cookies Policy, Disclaimer, Terms of Service, Terms of Use, and EULA.

The tool is compliant with GDPR, CCPA, CalOPPA, and other monitor laws and regulations covering a diverse range of geographic locations. The tool sends you a notification when it is time to update the policies.

AND.CO

This tool is a big saviour and helps agencies. It ensures that the agency owner focuses on his or her work while the tool is used for creating legal proposals, invoices, payments, and contracts, with features for tracking time, expenses, reports, and making ask lists.

The contract feature has been developed in partnership with the Freelancers Union and, therefore, considers aspects that help create realistically viable contracts for freelancers.

It is imperative for digital marketing agencies and freelancers to know about and use these legal tools to safeguard their and the other party's interests. It keeps a lot of things transparent and the entire creative process complete without any hitch.