How "sellable" are contract templates? Forum

[El Greco]

Pragmatically, how sellable are contract templates? Especially, M&A contracts, financial, etc. for bigger transactions.

I have many contract drafts and templates that aren't confidentially protected / details erased as to keep the 'template' model without providing any possible way to identify parties or the transaction, and I was thinking that some smaller law firms (regional) or even foreign law firms may be interested in getting their hands over some of those templates to improve their drafting / have templates for foreign clients / etc. If not, even students that may be interested to read those contracts to see the theory in practice.

Assuming a low 3 figures bundle of contract templates:
(1) How marketable/sellable would be those (multiple jurisdictions, different transaction types, extremely different drafting styles, etc.).
(2) If sellable, what would be an adequate pricing range?
(3) Anything else to take into consideration before reaching out to some potential buyers (I reiterate that they keep 100% the template model, no confidential information nor client/law firm IP i.e. logo/name over them); some were even drafted by me almost from scratch.

[crouton62]

This feels like a very bad idea. Even with client info removed, your present or former employers are not going to like the idea of a present or former employee selling their work product commercially. I am sure most firm handbooks have some provision that would prohibit something like this. I also suspect state bar offices could raise an eyebrow this, too. But that aside, I am not sure there is much of a need for this type of thing. Many different types of transactional documents are filed every day with the SEC and available for free on EDGAR.

And who are your potential buyers? People you have worked with on other deals? Are you going to cold solicit folks? If I got an email from a stranger asking me to buy their templates, it would be an auto-delete. Not going to rely on some random person's templates in my work. Feels like malpractice waiting to happen. And I if I had worked with you on a deal before and you sent me something like that, I would be tempted to email the partner on your team and let them know what was up because this thing feels very sketch to me.

If you want to publish some templates, go through the proper channels at your firm and see if some outfit like Practical Law might be interested. Not sure you will get to benefit commercially from that, but that could be a nice way to get your name out there...

[Bramwell]

Lawyers quietly taking precedent forms on their way out the door may be overlooked, but commercialising work product (that belongs to the firm or its clients) for sale to third parties is less likely to be tolerated and seems not worth the risk.

[nixy]

some were even drafted by me almost from scratch.

This makes pretty clear that most of them aren’t actually your own work, right?

[mardash]

Less than bananas, more than organs.

[nealric]

Lawyers quietly taking precedent forms on their way out the door may be overlooked, but commercialising work product (that belongs to the firm or its clients) for sale to third parties is less likely to be tolerated and seems not worth the risk.

Plus, there are already established commercial businesses that sell templates (i.e. Practical Law or Legal Zoom).