Desktop Lawyer Business Edition

Basically, you get 40 templates covering a wide range of business situations such as debt collection, buying a domain name, cancelling an order, stopping a cheque, setting up a confidentiality or consultancy agreement, letting premises, assigning patents, chasing invoices and so on.

You can then tailor these templates to suit your individual situation. You simply select the one you want to use and Desktop Lawyer Business displays a form on-screen allowing you to personalise the template by answering a series of questions. As you answer each question, the program creates a personalised document which you can save, edit (rather as you would a word processed document) and print out. The results are impressive. The agency agreement for example, covers force majeure, rights and obligations of both the agent and the principal, commission, confidentiality and the terms for termination of the agreement.

As with other products of this type, the software authors are careful to make it clear what is and isn't covered by the program. Essentially, although Desktop Lawyer Business produces legally sound documents, the authors stress that these should be used in conjunction with proper advice from a qualified solicitor. Such is the changing nature of the law in England and Wales (where this product is designed to be used) that you'd do well to keep this advice in mind. Make sure you register the product too, as it's important to keep this one up to date. Although it's no substitute for proper legal advice, Desktop Lawyer Business nevertheless produces a wide range of authoritative, legally sound documents which many sole traders and small companies will find useful. --Rob Beattie