Free Legal Resources

The following are free and helpful legal resources for entrepreneurs and business owners. The purpose of this page is to be a one-stop database of these resources so that entrepreneurs and business owners can have quick access to a variety of free and other helpful legal resources to grow their businesses.

Graphics and How-to Guides

Free Legal Documents

COMPANY FORMATION:

• Orrick startup forms library (founders’ documents for a Delaware C Corporations)
• Goodwin founders workbench (founders’ documents for C Corporations or LLCs)

RAISING CAPITAL FROM INVESTORS:

• Foundry Group’s entrepreneurial resources (template term sheets, stock purchase agreements, and links to other free templates)
• Venture Deals resources (additional similar templates, and also related to the Foundry Group’s templates)
• National Venture Capital Association’s model legal documents (templates for raising a Series A round, along with other related documents)
• Orrick’s Series A ready toolkit
• Series Seed (templates for raising Series Seed investment rounds)
• Wilson Sonsini convertible note term sheet generator
• Silicon Hills seed template library
• Cooley Go convertible note document generator
• Cirrus Insight startup pitchdecks
• Carta’s founder resource center

COMPANY OPERATIONS:

• Upcounsel (miscellaneous contracts and templates)
• Tech Contracts (contracts and templates for technology transactions)
• Law Insider (miscellaneous contracts and templates sourced from publicly available databases)

Resources for Oregon Companies

• McGaughey Erickson Oregon Corporate Law Handbook
• Oregon Secretary of State’s Corporation Division (incorporate your Oregon business, search for available business names, determine which licenses your business may need, etc.)
• How to Start a Business in Oregon Legal Guide (published by the Oregon Secretary of State)
• Employer’s Guide for Doing Business in Oregon (also published by the Oregon Secretary of State)
• Oregon.gov’s Business Express (information about registering your business, obtaining licenses, permits, paying taxes, etc.)
• Oregon.gov’s Startup Toolkit (a step-by-step guide to starting an Oregon business)
• Oregon.gov’s Guides on Employees v. Independent Contractors
• Multnomah County Public Library Research Tools (if you are a member of the library, this link takes you to free access to LegalForms and LegalTrac databases)
• Oregon Revised Statutes
• Oregonlaws.org (a free annotated guide to Oregon laws and statutes)
• Oregon Legal Research (a robust web site for self-help legal research run by Oregon law librarians from Washington and Clackamas counties)

Other Helpful Legal Resources

• United States Patent and Trademark Office (search for, and learn about, patents and trademarks)
• World Intellectual Property Organization’s global trademark database (conduct international trademark searches)
• United States Copyright Office (register copyrights and learn more about copyrights)
• Security and Exchange Commission’s Guide for Small Business on Raising Capital and Complying with the Federal Securities Laws
• U.S. Small Business Administration (a wealth of information and how-to guides on starting a business and getting financing)
• Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (a not-for-profit organization run by Cornell University that publishes law for free and creates materials that help people understand law.)
• Stanford’s legal tech list (links to companies that are attempting to make innovative legal tech products)
• Latham & Watkins book of corporate and banking jargon
• NW Corporate Law’s Scholarship (a scholarship sponsored by our firm for entrepreneurial law students — yes, a shameless plug!)