LawDepot and LegalZoom are two legal services firms that give clients the option of carrying out paperwork and documents without the need to hire a lawyer. Choosing the right provider is essential as a bad firm can mean you pay a high cost for slow service and low-quality work.
Although the industry is larger, these two competitors stand out by name and reputation. In this review-comparison, we compare the features of these two firms.
Don't want to be limited to two options? here's another highly recommended service firm: ZenBusiness.
- Competitive prices
- Multiple service options
- Reliable and offers a quick turnaround time
Features of Lawdepot and Legalzoom
Company History and Track Record
LegalZoom started in 1999, when its owners saw the Internet as the perfect medium to spread the service of creating high-quality legal resources. The company’s first areas of interest included company formation, estate planning, and protection of intellectual property.
Now, they have a broad network of independent attorneys who provide legal advice to individuals and businesses. They even offer affordable prepaid legal plans that best suit your needs. They started with just ten documents but now, they have exceeded the impressive amount of 4 million clients.
LawDepot was created a little later, in 2001. They started out offering a single type of legal document, but quickly saw the opportunity of the internet to offer a whole range of documents as well. They currently offer more than 150 and have helped more than 10 million clients.
In terms of years of experience, LegalZoom wins out here.
Winner: LegalZoom
Offered Services and Documents
Like top-performing LLC services, LawDepot offers a variety of legal documents, ranging from real estate to business to LLC creation. They have a wide range of documents that serve most of the cases in which a very niche-specific approach is not required and therefore a lawyer is not needed.
Like LawDepot, LegalZoom offers a range of documentation for general cases but also offers more specialized services such as tax issues and power of attorney. The platform is simple and user friendly. Even if you don’t have much idea of the document to use, the page provides assistance. LegalZoom also offers the possibility of hiring lawyers and consultants.
LegalZoom offers more than 150 legal documents and forms, including LegalZoom last wills or testament, rental agreements, business contracts, and consent forms for children’s travel. They offer the following services and documents:
- Business formation
- Will / trust / family law, which includes last will and testament, living trust [1], divorce and name change
- Intellectual property
- Network of online lawyers to offer specialized assistance in any discipline.
LawDepot offers only documents. The advantage of this firm is that it offers the largest online library of legal documents.
Popular legal forms include:
- Rental contracts
- Loans
- Estate planning
- Company and LLC formation
- Living will
- Music recording contract
- Non-competition agreements
- Non-disclosure agreements
LawDepot is specifically focused on providing legal documents and does not offer a full suite of legal services. It caters to clients who do not require legal advice and are simply looking for documents, and their library of documents is a competitive advantage for them.
On the other hand, LegalZoom is able to connect you with lawyers online to get specific advice while ensuring that your legal documents are valid and enforceable. So in our LawDepot vs LegalZoom comparison, the latter wins this round.
Winner: LegalZoom
Lawyer Guidance
Only LegalZoom company offers lawyer guidance and online customer reviews have indicated that this feature is a standout advantage for the company. You can get help on business formation, contracts, business agreements, copyrights and trademarks, property, family law, estate planning, bankruptcy, and employment matters, among others.
Winner: LegalZoom
Lawdepot and Legalzoom: User Experience
Even though LegalZoom is similar to other companies offering top-tier registered agent services, the LegalZoom user experience is not the best. The platform is somewhat outdated and the document creation process can be very cumbersome and time-consuming.
On the contrary, LawDepot is quite user friendly. The platform is designed to make the process easy and fast. Through a series of questions, LawDepot allows the client to generate their own document in a simple and efficient way.
Winner: LawDepot
Lawdepot and Legalzoom Customer Service
LawDepot customer service is available Monday through Friday from 8 am to 7 pm, by mail, phone and chat. It also has a wide variety of frequently asked questions that are useful. The service is high-quality and the team is very responsive. The customer service can compare to other established LLC services like Northwest and Incfile.
LegalZoom is also available Monday through Friday from 5 am to 7 pm, but they also work on Saturdays. However, customer service is not the fastest. According to reviews, many customers complain about customer service as it takes time to get a response.
Winner: LawDepot
Customer Reviews
LawDepot has a 3.88 rating on SiteJabber compared to 3.65 for LegalZoom, and 4.5 on Trustpilot compared to LegalZoom’s 2.3. Customers generally appreciated the customer service quality, the range of documents available and the ease of use that LawDepot provided, but did not like that LawDepot made it difficult to cancel recurring credit card charges.
Customers of LegalZoom enjoyed the quality of its pre-paid legal services and its customer service, but some customers also had bad customer service experiences. They also did not like the hidden fees and charges that came with some of its services.
Winner: LawDepot
Lawdepot and Legalzoom Pricing
A single document from LawDepot can cost anywhere from $7.50 to $39.00. However, you can also get a One Year Pro license for $95.88 annually for unlimited documents. The company also offers a free trial for one week which then renews at $33 per month.
LegalZoom has one of the highest prices among the best online legal services network unlike the legal fees of Zen Business, which is consistent with its reputation and its complexity of services offered. Its cheapest LLC package starts from a price of $79 while registered agent service costs $299 per year, although it is still cheaper than the fees of a traditional lawyer.
Winner: LawDepot
Overall Winner: LegalZoom
LegalZoom offers more comprehensive and general legal advice, which can be very useful if you want to start a business or require additional assistance. LawDepot focuses only on providing legal documentation which means that it cannot cater to all of the legal needs an individual might have.
In this LegalZoom vs Lawdepot review, LegalZoom may be more expensive but you get more features in return. You can also check how we compare LegalZoom and ZenBusiness here. Check out which one wins in our review.
Inc Authority is another LLC service which can help you to kick start your business, you can also check our review of Inc Authority here.
