Online legal services like RocketLawyer help small businesses save money on legal costs and get affordable help when they need it. They also give entrepreneurs confidence that their legal work is being taken care of professionally and correctly.
Considering the potential costs of hiring a lawyer or the hassle and uncertainty of handling legal matters yourself, it’s understandable why small businesses are turning to fast online services like RocketLawyer.
RocketLawyer overview
As an online legal service, RocketLawyer provides a useful collection of features for small businesses looking for help with legal matters. The services offered work well and represent great value, while the attention paid to the user experience is impressive.
However, in a competitive market RocketLawyer has some strong rivals. Ultimately, because of the combination of discounted access to lawyers combined with the quality of RocketLawyers own online services, we rank them just ahead of the LegalZoom but behind LegalShield.
RocketLawyer has two main aspects; service and access.
- First, they offer the valuable legal service of handling tricky legal processes like forming a company or conducting a trademark search for you. You’ll need to give them some of the information they need to do their job, but their expertise should make the process much easier.
- Second, they give you access to legal professionals at discounted rates. This means that one of the benefits you get from being a Premium Member is the ability to hire lawyers that can meet your specific needs at rates significantly cheaper than on the open market. You also get access to a library of legal documents that their question-based system will help you fill out more easily than doing it manually.
Check out our roundup of the Best Online Legal Services
RocketLawyer features
RocketLawyerdivides their help into two categories; business and personal. Since this is a review for small businesses, we’ll focus on business.
RocketLawyer further divide their online legal services for businesses into four areas:
- Start a business
- Rent a property
- Make contracts
- Protect your ideas
We’ll discuss pricing and packages later, but for now, it’s important to know that Premium members get access to the majority of their services included in their membership. This means you won’t find yourself choosing between different features or package options unless you really don’t want to become a member and would just rather use a single feature one time.
For businesses, RocketLawyer offers comprehensive services covering the following specific areas:
- Starting a business
- Incorporation
- LLCs
- Non-Profit Organizations
- Freelance/Independent contractors
- Contracts and service agreements
- Running a business/compliance
- Labor and employment
- Intellectual property (IP) and licensing
- Trademarks
- Copyright
- Patents
Within these areas, RocketLawyer offers assistance in filling out documentation, guiding you through the process, and can even do much of the legwork themselves.
Particularly useful features include an excellent system to get you pointed in the right direction by asking you a series of questions. Based on your answers, you’ll be directed to services and be given guidance and assistance that meets your needs. You can always see where you are in the process, and navigation is easy.
Overall, this creates a high-quality user experience. Customer support is also easily obtainable by phone, email, or online chat.
If you need to talk to an actual person, RocketLawyer makes it easy. New members get a 30 minute consultation for each legal matter they’re facing. With this and access to lawyers at a reduced price, getting sound legal advice on a budget is affordable for even the most financially constrained small businesses.
RocketLawyer pricing
Unlike some other online legal services, RocketLawyer makes it easy to summarize the prices for each of their services by displaying them all on a single page. They also lay out the price differences between accessing their various services as a member (usually free or at a significant discount) or as a non-member. Most often the cost of accessing any given service as a non-member exceeded the cost of a Premium Monthly membership.
Monthly membership is $39.99, and at the time of writing RocketLawyer is currently offering a free, seven-day trial. It’s important to note that RocketLawyer won’t let you access either the RocketLawyer OnCall attorneys or 30-minute consultations during your trial membership.
If you don’t feel like spending $39.99 each month or becoming a member seems too much of a commitment for you, then paying a one-time fee can be a smart move if you don’t have recurring legal needs. However, as a small business, there’s a good chance you’ll find their services useful more than once, making the Premium Membership a valuable asset.
Alternatives to RocketLawyer
- RocketLawyer is a high-end online legal service, like LegalZoom. Both are affordable compared to hiring an attorney the traditional way and offer comparable services. If you’re considering RocketLawyer to support your small business’ legal needs, you should also take a look at LegalZoom.
- Another similar service to RocketLawyer is LegalShield. They have a plan specifically for small businesses starting at $39 per month. They offer many of the same services, and have an excellent app and a great user experience.
- Those more interested in access to a marketplace of affordable, quality lawyers should consider UpCounsel.
RocketLawyer: The verdict
As an online legal service, RocketLawyer provides a useful collection of features for small businesses looking for help with legal matters. The services offered work well and represent great value, while the attention paid to the user experience is impressive.
However, in a competitive market RocketLawyer has some strong rivals. Ultimately, because of the combination of discounted access to lawyers combined with the quality of RocketLawyers own online services, we rank them just ahead of the LegalZoom but behind LegalShield.