Answer the questions, and the agreement drafts itself
Eleven everyday agreements, fifteen jurisdictions, and a rule we hold to: a guided document is not a template. It asks what is true, composes the agreement from the answers, and arrives with its parties and fields already in place.
· 3 min read
Most people who need an agreement do not need a lawyer to invent one. They are selling a car, lending a friend money, taking on a freelancer, or letting a room. The document they need is ordinary, and the hard part is not the drafting — it is knowing what the document has to say about their particular situation.
The usual answer is a template: a Word file with blanks. A template is quietly the worst of both worlds. It asks you to know which clauses apply, it has no idea which country you are in, and every blank is somewhere a field on the finished document has to be placed by hand.
A guided document is not a template
Rutba Sign’s guided documents work the other way round. You answer questions — who the parties are, what is being sold or lent, the price, the dates, which country’s law applies — and the agreement is composed from the answers. A question that does not apply to you is never asked, because the next question depends on the last answer.
What comes out is not only a document. It is an execution profile: the parties are already parties, the signature and date fields already sit where the document needs them, and any witness is already a witness — with the address and occupation a witness block states, because a witness is not a signatory. The envelope is filled in before you open it.
Eleven of them, so far
| For people | For businesses |
|---|---|
| Private vehicle sale | Mutual non-disclosure agreement |
| Loan between individuals | Services agreement |
| Flatshare agreement | Offer of employment |
| Letter of authority | Deed of assignment (intellectual property) |
| Freelance engagement letter | |
| Inventory and schedule of condition | |
| End of tenancy and deposit statement |
Two of the personal ones are shaped as much by what they refuse to be as by what they are. The flatshare agreement is deliberately not a tenancy, and the letter of authority is deliberately not a power of attorney. Why, and what else we will not draft, is the next part of this series.
Fifteen jurisdictions, and what changes between them
The same agreement is not the same document in Nairobi and Toronto. Each jurisdiction profile carries the governing law and courts, how witnessing is normally done, whether stamp duty applies, and how a company is described in an execution block.
The profiles today: the United Kingdom (England & Wales), Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong SAR, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.
A template asks you to know which clauses apply. A guided document asks what is true and works out the rest.
What happens once it is drafted
A drafted agreement goes straight into the rest of its life: sent by link, from the app or in person, signed, sealed and verifiable by anybody. If the words need changing before anybody signs, the draft opens in the same word processor Rutba’s documents use, and changes there travel with it.
Try a guided document
Pick the agreement, answer the questions, and read the draft — on the Rutba Sign site.
Prepare a document
