Absolutely, the purpose of the consultation and demo is to make sure the platform can solve your problems. We'll be the first to tell you if it is not the right fit. If we do think it is the right fit we are happy to give you a full demo of the entire process so that you are fully confident of how easy it is. You are not obliged to proceed and we won't charge you for any of this.

The purpose of the consultation is to discuss your goals and current situation to determine whether Robolawyer can help you achieve them. No sales push - you'll talk to a qualified and experienced business lawyer about your specific needs.

You will speak with our founder, Zarek, who is a corporate UK solicitor with 15+ years experience and is also the founder of Robolawyer. He previously ran a regulated legal practice that exclusively advised tech companies and startups on all of the matters that Robolawyer now deals with. He has advised over 1500 startups since 2009.

Robolawyer is not a law firm and is not regulated. Robolawyer is a self-serve software platform that helps you close common business legal matters yourself without friction or delay. This does not include personal legal advice from a lawyer, but the system is designed to guide you through your chosen legal scenario with expert legal insights based on years of experience advising startups and small businesses. We are confident that you will be able to complete the entire matter yourself and be confident that the outcome will be legally correct.

We understand this can often be the case but if any of our legal matters seem like they might be suitable for your situation please book a consultation and we'll figure that out together.

30 minutes, by video call.

You should know the current ownership of your business e.g. who the current shareholders are and how many shares they hold. If you are considering an investment you should have some idea of who or how many investors there will be and how much you will be raising. This should be enough to get started.

Yes, you may invite whoever you wish to the consultation.

No, since we are not a law firm the purpose of the consultation is not to give you advice but rather to assess whether the platform is suitable for you. If it is then of course we will outline the next steps.

No problem - we will explain everything relevant without lawyer jargon.

Definitely not. When you sign up you will be given the option to join our mailing list which is not compulsory. Other than the emails from our mailing list we will not contact you unless you decide to proceed. We do not share your email with any third party.

Once you decide to proceed we will invoice you for the full amount based on the matter that you want to carry out. Once this has been settled we will create your company account and give you access to the platform.

All charges are upfront. There are no additional charges for a matter once you have paid for it, regardless of the number of parties involved or the number of changes you need to make. We do not operate any subscription models.

We do not offer refunds. We are confident you won't need one.

You must have a company incorporated in the UK. We will need to know the company number and details of the shareholders. If you have promised shares to anyone we will also need to know their details.

There is no time limit. Take as long as you wish.

The company model is a representation of your company as it exists in the real world today. It contains information about its current shareholders and directors, as well as details of any people you have promised percentages of ownership to or have already taken money from as advance subscriptions for shares (early investments). We use this information as a basis for the matters you need carried out. It is easily viewable as a cap table.

You don't need one. As the founder of your startup, you will already know the key terms of the deal you are planning. In the same way that you would give a lawyer some minimal information to get started ("Our pre-money valuation is £2.5m and Diana will invest £250k"), you are the best person to state the terms. You don't need to worry about the legal stuff - that's what we are here for.

We've designed each matter's term sheet to cater for the majority of situations. This comes from years of experience advising hundreds of startups on similar matters. We follow established procedures that real legal professionals use daily. If we don't think our platform is suitable for your needs, we'll let you know at the consultation stage.

Many founders are often advised that things are 'non-standard' when in fact they happen very frequently. If something is truly not standard, we'll let you know during the consultation.

No. Our matters are designed to determine exactly which documents you need to reach your specified goals. If document 'X' is required, it will be automatically included in the list of drafts produced.

Our inline guidance provides comprehensive information about each term that you will need to consider, so we are confident that you won't need any additional assistance. However, if you believe our inline guidance does not adequately answer your question, we are always happy to chat via email.

Yes, you are able to add other users such as fellow directors or an advisor.

We have designed the system to minimise confusion. You know your business and goals better than anyone else. You simply need to read each statement and alter it so that you agree with it. As a bonus, the deal summary updates instantly in the background so you can also see the impact of each change you make in a jargon-free way.

No problem. Just come back and enter it when you do.

This is a bespoke document that is tailored specifically to your terms. It outlines the current position and then takes your provided terms and explains the impact of them on the company. It is the explanatory document you wish your lawyer would give you.

We have developed our documents through years of experience. Where possible, we follow standard practice (for example when putting together the equity funding documentation we use the BVCA's model documentation as a starting point). Our documents are of the highest quality and what you would expect to receive if you were engaging with a top tier law firm.

No. All of our wording is drafted by hand by an experienced and qualified lawyer. AI does not provide reliable output and should not be relied on for legal documents.

Templates and template generation services work by asking for huge amounts of (often irrelevant) information up front and simply populating standard documents using that information. The end result is a bunch of documents that probably don't serve your needs adequately. They also often require you to know exactly what you need. Our approach is different because we don't expect you to know what you need. You simply state your objectives and Robolawyer will determine what the correct documents (and their content) should be. No irrelevant questions, no irrelevant wording.

At the end of the day it is your responsibility to understand what you are getting into. Every lawyer will tell you the same thing - you need to read the documents that you are going to sign. Thankfully, our documents are drafted in clear, plain English and are easy to follow and understand.

Yes, you can do this if you wish. However, you should not blindly rely on the output from any AI model as it is your responsibility to understand what the documents say. When uploading anything to public AI services you should also always consider how that service handles your data and whether it respects your privacy.

Each document starts with sensible defaults. If you need to tweak them, standard wording can be added to or removed from the document simply by checking or unchecking boxes. All formatting and cross referencing is taken care of automatically and the entire document is updated instantly. If you need to make more bespoke changes, you can freely edit the text to suit your needs. Everything happens through our powerful document editor so you never need to leave the platform or wrestle with Word.

Yes, comments can be left and discussions held directly within the context of clauses within the documents.

Yes, you can add an advisor who can do this.

Yes, you can download draft copies in PDF format which you are free to print or share as you wish. This is often helpful when getting preliminary confirmation from certain people involved in a matter that they are happy with the documents before they are formally circulated.

One of the most frustrating elements of dealing with business transactions from a legal perspective is assembling the various draft packs, ensuring the correct instructions are written to each party, and ensuring that the correct versions and documents are attached to the email.

Robolawyer reduces this pain by automatically determining what instructions and attachments need to be sent to each party.

However, if you wish to run the remainder of a transaction 'offline', you can do that. The downside is that you will not be able to track progress, have private discussions, automatically integrate proposed changes, or deal with the other repetitive and time-consuming processes involved in this type of legal work.

A draft pack is a package of documents and related instructions that a lawyer would typically put together and send to an individual party who is involved in a matter. The more complex the matter, the more draft packs need to be assembled. This element of running legal deals is often overlooked and is where mistakes can happen - you don't want to send the wrong version of a document to someone, or a document they shouldn't have access to!

In any legal workflow it's important to know that everyone is working off the same versions of each document involved. While some matters involve only a few documents and parties, others (such as raising money through issuing new shares) include multiple documents. By locking the terms and drafts into a version set, you can be sure that everyone is seeing the same copies of the document. Once locked, you will not be able to make further changes to the terms or any of the documents.

You can unlock version sets if they haven't been shared with anyone. Once shared, you cannot unlock them and any changes you make will be recorded, and each party who you have shared them with notified of the changes.

Instructions are prepared automatically for each party involved in a matter, depending on their role. For example, when sharing documents with your company's directors, instructions simply outline the purpose of each document and why they need to consider them. However, when sharing with investors, friendlier wording is used which helps to guide them through the process and understand what they need to do for the deal to proceed.

Yes. It is important that you are happy with how communications are handled with everyone involved in a matter. You will have the opportunity to review and amend the email that will be sent to each party, as well as include additional documents that they may not be sent by default.

No. Robolawyer automatically determines which documents need to be sent to which parties and drafts the instructions accordingly. If you wish to send a party additional documents, this is as simple as checking a box to include it.

We have designed the process to be as frictionless as possible for parties.

When you share a draft pack with a party, they are sent an email inviting them to login to the system without having to setup an account. Parties will then have access to a dashboard that is personalised to them, providing bespoke instructions about what steps they need to take. They will be able to review each document, propose changes and make comments directly within them.

When a party is ready to sign a document, they will do so directly within that document.

Robolawyer is secure by design. Parties will login using the email address you provide for them, with a one-time code being sent to them each time they login. They can only access the documents that you give them access to. They are unable to see the overall progress of the matter and they do not have access to your company model or other commercially sensitive information.

Yes. You can choose to share with individuals, entire groups (such as just the founders), or everyone all at once.

No, documents are not attached. However, once a party signs into the platform they can download a PDF copy to read offline. Downloaded PDFs are watermarked as drafts with each party's name to ensure continued confidentiality.

You can update a party's email address and resend the draft pack to them. The old email address will no longer have access to the platform.

Yes, records are maintained who shared the documents, which email address they were sent to and the date and time they were sent. You can also resend draft packs if required.

To an extent, yes. As the business owner you will be negotiating the commercial elements of the deal before you approach any lawyer or service to actually put them into effect.

However, the legal process involves ironing out the details, and this is what we refer to as the negotiation stage in the transaction.

Legal negotiations revolve around individual parties reviewing the documents they have been sent, raising questions and proposing new wording or requesting changes to be made. These changes are often driven by commercial needs rather than nitpicking about the use of 'shall' versus 'will'.

In order to negotiate effectively, you need to be able to understand every party's specific concerns and then make changes that affect every party. Traditionally, this means combing through emails or WhatsApp messages, maintaining a mental note of what each person wants, and then eventually applying those changes and recirculating the documents to everyone involved.

Robolawyer makes this painful process simple by providing an overview of what each party's concerns are, so that you can assess them as a whole. By keeping everything in one place, you can be sure that you have not missed anything. If changes are required, these can be handled within the platform.

Where you have shared documents with parties, it's important to reduce complexity when managing negotiations. One way to do this is to ensure that you are in control of integrating any proposed new wording into the documents. Our negotiation dashboard makes this simple by allowing you to accept or reject changes.

When a party proposes amended wording, changes are automatically tracked produced and stored showing the original wording in a clean format and the proposed new wording in a redline format. This allows you to easily see what has changed without having to resort to running comparisons against entire documents and picking them out manually.

You can view progress of a matter by document, or by each party. Comments and proposed changes are organised by document and clause. Where multiple parties comment or propose changes to a single piece of wording, you will see all of these comments together.

As the matter progresses and each party signs each document, you will see a progress bar creep up until it finally hits 100% - that's when you can proceed to closing the deal.

It depends on the firm, but generally speaking a lawyer will keep a mental note of what each party's needs and requirements are. This often involves significant email back-and-forth. It's one of the most stressful parts of the job for a lawyer, but the amount of actual legal advice involved is relatively low. This is why we've come up with a better way of doing this work, and we've made it so simple that you can do it yourself.

No. Comments and proposed changes to documents are private by default, so that only you can see them. However, if you wish to make a comment thread public (so that everyone who has access to the document can see it and chime in), you can do this.

When a party views a document they can simply select the wording they want to amend and make a direct change to it. They will be able to see a redlined version of their proposed wording against the original wording, and that wording will be shown as pending acceptance or rejection by you.

On your end, the negotiation dashboard will show the relevant wording within its context. You can have a full conversation about the proposed wording as a comment thread, and eventually accept or reject the change.

If a change is accepted, it is applied to the document immediately and each party who has access to it will be notified of the change. Contrast this with making changes manually in Word, producing new versions and emailing each person to tell them of the change - multiple times!

This happens from time to time. For example, where an investor wishes to pull out from the deal or if an investment needs to be structured differently. These significant changes often require updates to multiple documents that cannot be effectively made in place.

If this is required, you can create a new version set and make the changes there with ease by editing the term sheet again. All the required documents will be updated and the version set locked again before being re-shared. You will still have access to the original version set.

Comments on clauses can be left directly within the context of the clause in question. These are private discussions by default which can involve multiple members of your team and the party who started the discussion. Discussions can also be made public so that all parties can see them.

Traditionally, lawyers include 'signature blocks' in circulated drafts which include the details of every party who needs to sign. This can often be confusing for parties, who need to dig through the signature blocks to find which are relevant to them.

Our documents only include the signature blocks that are relevant to a particular party.

Parties can then sign directly onto the document as if they were doing so with wet ink. Signatures are collected and stored using appropriate metadata.

Yes, signatures from companies often require the signature of both the acting director and the company entity itself. Don't worry - this is handled.

A deed is a special type of contract that needs to be signed in the presence of a witness. We handle this in the same way that you would handle signature of a deed in real life - by asking the witness to also be present in front of the computer when the party signs it, and to provide their own signature and details in the same way.

You will be notified each time a party signs a document and the negotiation dashboard will show this progress. No need to check in with someone to see how close you are to closing.

Yes. This is common practice as it allows all of the documents to share the same date and for the deal to close properly once everything has been checked and any obligations of the parties (such as making payment) have been verified. As a result, parties do not date the documents (although the time and date they signed them is recorded).

No. Closing a deal is a separate part of the process which you will proceed to after all signatures have been obtained. This is because various checks need to be carried out to ensure that everyone has met any obligations they may have, that all signatures have been provided correctly, and that no last minute alterations are required.

Closing (or 'completion') is the point at which all documents have been signed and dated and the obligations of the parties have been met (such as payments being made). Traditionally, law firms would hold completion meetings at their offices where all of the parties would attend to sign the documents and celebrate together afterwards. In modern times this happens less frequently, and it's far more common to close the deal online.

Once all signatures have been received, a lawyer then asks the client to confirm that payment has been made (or receives and holds money on behalf of their client). They will then check that everything is order (e.g. that all signatures are in the right places and on the right documents) before dating them all.

Following this, the lawyer will assemble all of the collected signatures (whether obtained via DocuSign or printed and scanned) into a final PDF files that contains them all. This needs to be done for each document individually - imagine how long that must take a for a deal with multiple documents and multiple parties!

The final documents are then shared with each party and a 'transaction bible' is produced for the client which contains all the key documents organised neatly for future reference.

After all of this, there is still usually some additional work to be done. Returns often need to be made to Companies House or other official registrars of information. Some of these are filed via online forms while others need to be manually uploaded or submitted.

The final step is to update the company's file to reflect the new changes to its structure or documentation.

Robolawyer automates this entire pain-staking and repetitive process for you. Once all signatures have been obtained, you simply check off that each party with an obligation has fulfilled that obligation, then proceed to dating the documents before doing one final check of the assembled documents and then confirming you wish to close. This automatically updates the company model and you are then able to share the final packs with each party and download the transaction bible. Filing obligations are clearly outlined with specific deadlines and procedures noted to ensure that you don't make any last-minute mistakes.

This is unfortunately sometimes the case. Using traditional methods it would mean going back to the drafts, making all required amendments to remove that person from them, resharing the documents with everyone involved and asking for all documents to be signed again. This inevitably leads to bad blood between the parties (and their advisors) and increases costs for everyone involved.

With Robolawyer, last-minute amendments are dealt with automatically if a party fails to meet their duties. They are removed from all documentation. You will have the option to recirculate the entire the pack, but its often quicker to simply make the changes in place and ask the parties to confirm that they are happy with them before proceeding to close without the defaulting party.

You can choose for all documents to share the same date, or you can select an individual date for each document.

The final assembled PDF files are beautifully drafted in the professional style that you would expect if instructing a large commercial law firm. All signatures are included within the document, with the relevant metadata. Each document can be printed or stored in any manner you wish.

Yes, you can do it any way you wish. You will be able to download each party's final pack as a zip file. Each pack contains only the documents relevant to that party. You can then share them as you wish - many founders like to send a more personalised email at this stage with the documents attached.

It is your responsibility to make official filings. Unfortunately, the Companies House API service does not allow all documents to be filed electronically. Once it does, we'll integrate this capability. However, until then you will need to either login to Companies House Webfiling or upload documents via the Companies House document upload service. We simplify this for you in the closing phase by providing a table that outlines which documents need to be filed, what the deadline is for filing, and the appropriate method you should use.

No. The documents we produce are industry standard and are provided in formats that you or your future advisors can work with immediately. Think of it this way - if you were to instruct a small firm to work on a matter for you, the small firm would deliver the documents after the matter had been closed. You could then take those documents to a large firm, who would review them and proceed with your more complicated matter. Robolawyer works the same way. There is no obligation to use us in the future.

Since your company model will be automatically updated once a matter closes (for example, by including new investors on the cap table), you will be able to jump straight into a new matter using the updated company model as your new starting point. This will save significant time versus instructing someone else, who would first need to review and familiarise themselves with your company history.

Yes, docx files of the final documents will be included in your transaction bible.

This is up to you. Robolawyer is not a document storage service (although you will be able to access them while your account remains active). Our focus is on producing the documents required for you to close your deal and presenting them to you once closed. This is the same way lawyers work.

Yes, you can do whatever you want with the final documents - they are yours.