I am looking for a terms of service for a niche web hosting site, and I was wondering if it would be okay to use a generated terms of service, or if I had to get one made by a lawyer? If I have to get one made by a lawyer how much would that cost?
There are two advantages of using a lawyer, firstly you know that the terms are appropriate for your business model and worded correctly etc and secondly, if they turn out to have a big hole in them then you have a lawyer that you can sue who will have insurance in place. In the UK a set of semi bespoke T&Cs (ie a set of stock ones that are tweaked to your requirements) would cost in the region of £300-£400 so roughly $500
People sure love throwing that "sue" term around. If your atty makes a mistake, then its likely you will never see a dime of anything. You are telling him he is going to sue an atty that knows the law just as good as any other atty...if i was the atty suing, first, i would never even consider taking a case like this...atty's are out to make money from people that lost their arms and legs, or body parts, thats where the millions are...not some little hosting provider that may have gotten screwed over due to a bad TOS.... come on... I am just curious... How many atty's are out there that really know enough about the hosting business to write up a TOS? and I am sure they are not cheap either....
Dear dscurlock, I am an attorney who has limited my practice to Internet law since 2003. I know of many other attorneys who also practice in this limited field. We all know enough to write a TOS for a hosting business. I, myself, have written over one hundred TOS and Privacy Policies for all sorts of web sites. Further, I have handled dozens of law suits between Internet users. These suits get filed all the time even though no arms or legs were hacked off. Finally, the repeat business I get from happy clients tells me what I charge is reasonable for the service they receive.
Firstly, there are plenty that do specialise in the internet. Secondly, a more general one can easily do some desktop research to look at the clauses the big boys are using and be "inspired" by them. Thirdly, to some element it is up to the business to bring the issues and the solicitor to turn those into legal wordings though obviously it helps to avoid gaps if the solicitor has a reasonable idea of the business. As to getting a dime out of a solicitor..... my current client is an insurance company that writes Professional Indemnity Insurance for solicitors (amoungst other trades) and they certainly do pay out a tad more than a dime.