TechCrunch is wrapping (has wrapped) up its 2011 TechCrunch Disrupt conference and, for sure, some cool apps and tools have come out of the mix. One of these is Docracy, a crowd-sourced legal document database, with e-signing. The idea is that users will add the documents to the site in an open-source, crowd-sourced kind of relationship. Documents may include wills, contracts, trusts, non-competes, etc. I am not certain if it will be possible to download docs – it looks like the founders Matt Hall and John Watkinson appear to be intending users to compare their own documents against the Docracy docs to make sure their own docs are not rife with unusual, out of the ordinary terms. Hall and Watkinson see the need to be filled as those small legal matters that don’t necessarily warrant the cost of a lawyer but still could use a touch of due diligence.
Of course, there is the necessary caution that should be exercised when considering using a form document and the sense that “one size fits all” doesn’t necessarily work with legal documents across the fifty states. Nonetheless, you have to give the guys some credit for seeing a hole and attempting to fill it.
Docracy is not quite up yet – put your name on their mailing list to get the good word when the site goes live.