The bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away...

One thing I knew growing up was that there are a lot of documents to sign in any important purchase you make, including a house and a car, because I had to sit and watch my mom and dad sign papers for what seemed like an eternity.  Then, I realized how many documents there really are when my husband and I purchased our own home and vehicles.  I have never had the luxury of purchasing an RV, a boat, or a motorcycle, but I think there are probably several documents to sign in any setting such as that, especially when getting a loan to purchase them.  However, I didn't know until I got a job, how much paperwork that includes.  I never thought about how many documents are included in starting my own business, or adding an addition on to my house or borrowing against the equity in my house or my car, or when purchasing insurance until I actually did those things.  There are a lot of things that people get every day, a bank account, a credit card or department store card, a membership somewhere, etc.  We just go about our normal everyday lives and figure we want the thing we are purchasing badly enough and usually we feel rushed, that we don't actually read all of the documents, especially the fine print.  I think most of us are taught, just sign the bottom line and your purchase is complete.  There is a slogan that I heard recently that said "the bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away."  I spoke to my lawyer about a payment that was misplaced for a credit card one month on my credit report and she said "you remember the paperwork you signed when you got the credit card? especially the tiny print that nobody ever reads? that tiny print actually says they can do that."  That tiny print cost me a few points on my credit report.  Even my lawyer said nobody ever reads the tiny print.  This incident and the slogan got me thinking about all of the things that we purchase and how a lot of people don't use an attorney to look over these documents to be sure they are not getting jipped or taken advantage of because most of us can't afford one, or we don't feel we have enough time and we don't want to bother someone else to look over something we are purchasing.  Review of documents can also become necessary if legal matters happen to come up in your life, say someone sues you, you get audited, or you have to have a foreclosure or file bankruptcy.  But, lets just say for instance you happened to have an unlimited supply of funds and an attorney who would look over any and all documents whenever you want to purchase something, what would be included.  I went in search of just what might be included and how much it might actually cost and found the following information.

Document review (also known as doc review) is a task performed by attorneys in anticipation of legal proceedings or during the discovery phase of litigation. Document review requires the attorneys to assess the relevance and/or responsiveness of documents, using knowledge about the facts of the case and the issues of law. Later stages of document review (sometimes called privilege review or second level review) consider whether a document is privileged (on the basis of attorney-client communication and/or work product) and may be either withheld from production or redacted for content. Some law firms also utilize document reviewers to do more substantive work, depending on the experience of the reviewer. The actual review of the documents is performed either electronically (e-mails, files, scanned copies of documents) or manually.

Document review is often performed by temporary, or contract attorneys. The hourly rate for such attorneys depends heavily on the metropolitan area in which the project is located, the particular client for the project, the agency which staffs the project, and law firm performing the review. The pay can vary anywhere from $20 to $55 per hour, which is influenced by a variety of factors from geographic location, subject matter of the case and scope and length of the review. Projects requiring specialized knowledge or fluency in a foreign language can reach $50 to $90 per hour. Some projects increase the hourly rate for overtime hours worked; some do not. Projects can range in length from a few days to several years.

Document review projects are located throughout the United States, most commonly in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Phoenix, Kansas City, Columbus, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Newark. Document review projects may also be outsourced from United States law firms to Asian countries, most notably India, in an attempt to cut costs.

Document reviews also take place throughout Canada. These are done within the law firms themselves utilizing various review software, or by using legal service providers to host data, which can then be reviewed online via the internet. Review software offers editing capabilities and the choice is whether to invest in review software or pay a service provider to host the data, and also to maintain it - reducing IT maintenance costs and infrastructure.

I realize the document review this is talking about is more for business situations and reviewing all kinds of documents for legal cases against the company, but lawyers do offer document review at a similar rate for regular folks too, it just isn't something that is utilized very often.

I think in our rushed society, we don't really think about this option of someone reviewing important documents for us before signing.  Attorneys really don't find it useful to promote this option for people either, as most attorneys don't get a lot of call for document review from the average Joe... It is no wonder most of us just sign the bottom line and go on with what we purchased. 

A company called Prepaid Legal Services came up with a grand idea, however, to include document review by the member's provider law firm with their monthly service charges of $17/month or $26/month.  With their contract and document review... you can have an unlimited number of personal legal documents, up to ten pages each, reviewed by your provider lawyer.  Included each year is one business document review at no additional cost!  Your provider lawyer will analyze the documents and suggest changes for your benefits before you sign.

Any way you look at it, if you are going to have to have someone look at the documents you are getting ready to sign (besides yourself), an attorney would be the logical option.  Whether you sign up for the member benefits of Prepaid Legal Services and have documents reviewed very often or not, this would by far be the less expensive route to be sure that you don't end up with something that you didn't want.  The best way to avoid having to have someone review documents for you almost completely of course is to pay cash for everything.  It is amazing how much less paperwork there is with that option. 

Hopefully this information has been helpful if you decide you do need documents reviewed in knowing how much it could potentially cost, what might be included for you, and who might be reviewing them too.  I prefer the game of Life, rather than the real thing sometimes, because you can start over and decide to make better choices the next time you play.  However, I can't go back and start over in real life, so I just need to remember every day is a new day, I can make the best choices from now on... If I make a mistake, tomorrow is another new day!

-Melinda