Legal Wording for New Site - Advice?

Newsite

Hi all,

I am about to launch a new site and have some rudimentary T&Cs and Privacy policy wording in place. This was given to me by my web developers, who presumably give it out as generic wording to their clients. It seems pretty comprehensive, but I haven't consulted with a solicitor on it just yet.

I know you can't muck around with these things, but I did contact a solicitor re reviewing and approving it, and he wants me to call down to his office. For this I will be paying €300!!

Would it be reasonable to just go with my existing wording, or use the wording from other sites that are very similar? Or maybe look for an unemployed solicitor looking for a freelance job?

I know not consulting a solicitor could be a false economy, as you want to make sure these things are properly covered....but still - €300 notes?

allaboutclicks

You could try your local free legal advice centre - www.flac.ie

Newsite

Hmm, thanks but think that might be more for disadvantaged citizens looking for legal advice on civil matters..

YouBuyLocal

Take a piece of text in the T&Cs, wrap it in inverted commas and put it in Google. You will see how many sites use exactly the same wording. Everyone just copies off everyone else. You have to go through it in detail yourself anyway, but no need to see a Solicitor, most don't have experience with internet law. They will bamboozle you maybe, with legalistic terms but won't contribute to your security. If someone is going to sue you it will not be because they rummaged through your T&Cs and found a grammatical or logic error, it will be because you have money. Just do it yourself and when you have the cash to spare later on in your businesses' life time you should then spend it on a good solicitor, because it is at that point that you will be sued.

Good Luck

Newsite

YouBuyLocal wrote: »

Take a piece of text in the T&Cs, wrap it in inverted commas and put it in Google. You will see how many sites use exactly the same wording. Everyone just copies off everyone else. You have to go through it in detail yourself anyway, but no need to see a Solicitor, most don't have experience with internet law. They will bamboozle you maybe, with legalistic terms but won't contribute to your security. If someone is going to sue you it will not be because they rummaged through your T&Cs and found a grammatical or logic error, it will be because you have money. Just do it yourself and when you have the cash to spare later on in your businesses' life time you should then spend it on a good solicitor, because it is at that point that you will be sued.

Good Luck

Heheh, cheers, just did that and a tonne of sites popped up - I figured that was the case, that everyone copied everyone else, as T&Cs just seem so throwaway and generic. The guy I was meant to be seeing is highly unlikely to have internet law experience, so it could be just be an extremely expensive visit and just a lot of money out of my account and into his! So ya reckon just copy and tweak from a site in the same sector as me? Reckon that'll do nicely for now, and I have my own wording there anyway. Might just expand it out a bit.

YouBuyLocal

I don't give legal advice, but if I did it would be the best legal advice in the world