Fenwick & West started a program in 2010 whereby the firm “put a half dozen standardized legal documents on the Web for free to help entrepreneurs streamline the process of funding their startups without generating big legal bills.” The quote comes from Bloomberg BusinessWeek, April 11, 2011 at 30. An entrepreneur quoted in the article said that the form documents allowed him to obtain $2.5 million in seed capital for $20,000 in legal expenditures instead of the expected $50,000 or more.
As law firms compete and market with good templates placed for free online, with annotations, updates, variations, and commentary inevitably being added later, law departments will be beneficiaries and their budgets will go farther.