Paragrafo or a lawyer: what to choose and when
Short answer
A lawyer and Paragrafo do not do the same thing. A lawyer provides a legal service under Act 586/2003 Coll. on the legal profession, assesses your specific situation, takes responsibility for the advice and can represent you before a court or an authority. Paragrafo is a tool: it prepares a standard document from your details in minutes and shows which provision each part of it rests on, but responsibility for the outcome stays with you. For ordinary e-shop documents the difference is mainly in time and price. Once a dispute has arisen, where the contract is non-standard or where the value of the performance is high, a tool is no substitute for a lawyer.
This comparison is written by the operator of the tool, so it makes sense to start with what speaks against it. Paragrafo is not a law firm and is not allowed to provide legal services. That means you, not we, bear responsibility for the text you generate. A lawyer is the exact opposite in this respect, and that is their main advantage, not a detail in the terms.
At the same time, most documents an ordinary e-shop or sole trader needs are standard texts with a small number of variables. That is exactly where a tool makes sense: the same result in a fraction of the time and without having to place a new order every time an address changes.
Below is the difference criterion by criterion and then two lists: when to go to a lawyer and when a tool is enough. The first one is deliberately at the start.
The difference, criterion by criterion
- What it isParagrafo:A software tool. Some document types rest on templates from a law firm, the rest are prepared by a language model and are labelled as such.Lawyer:A legal service under Act 586/2003 Coll. on the legal profession, provided by a specific person entered in the register of lawyers.
- Responsibility for the outcomeParagrafo:Yours. The tool helps you prepare the document and shows the sources, but does not take on responsibility for whether it fits your situation.Lawyer:The lawyer's, to the extent set by the act on the legal profession and by the contract with you.
- Assessment of your situationParagrafo:Does not happen. The tool does not know exactly what you sell or what disputes you have behind you; it works with what you fill in.Lawyer:The core of the service. A lawyer asks about the circumstances and changes the solution according to them.
- TimeParagrafo:Minutes. The document is created straight away and you can edit it at any time.Lawyer:Days to weeks, depending on workload and on the complexity of the matter.
- PriceParagrafo:A subscription from 19 euros a month including VAT, regardless of the number of documents within the plan's limit.Lawyer:Set by agreement or under the tariff for legal services, that is, for each act separately.
- Representation in a disputeParagrafo:Not provided and may not be provided.Lawyer:Yes, including proceedings before courts and before supervisory authorities.
- A change in the law after handoverParagrafo:We monitor the official register and alert you when the regulation your document rests on changes. Rewriting the document is up to you.Lawyer:As agreed. Without an agreement on ongoing care, nobody will alert you to an amendment.
- ConfidentialityParagrafo:We process data under our privacy policy. The text of the question and the beginning of an uploaded contract are sent to the AI providers we name in that policy.Lawyer:A lawyer is bound by the duty of confidentiality under the act on the legal profession.
When the other option is better
These are the cases in which we do not recommend Paragrafo to you. They come before the reasons for us deliberately.
A dispute has already arisen or is looming
A demand has arrived, a complaint you are rejecting, a report to an inspectorate or a lawsuit. At that point it is not about a document but about a procedure, and that cannot be generated from a tool.
Non-standard performance or high value
A bespoke contract, a joint venture, a transfer of a business share, a long-term commitment, an unusual allocation of risk. A template is always the average; with a large sum, average is expensive.
Regulated business
Financial services, healthcare, food, transport, gambling, weapons. There, sector regulation is added to the general obligations, and our corpus of legislation does not cover it, which the pages state.
You need someone to carry the responsibility
If it matters to you that a person and not you vouches for correctness, that is a sufficient reason in itself. A tool does not offer that and cannot offer it.
Employees and borderline employment situations
Ending an employment, collective redundancies, a non-compete clause for a key person. The wording decides whether the act stands up, and a mistake is hard to put right.
When Paragrafo is a good fit
Standard documents for selling online
Terms and conditions, a privacy policy, information about liability for defects, a cookie policy. These are texts that every e-shop has in a similar form, because they follow from the same provisions.
You need it today
You are launching a website and the documents are missing. A tool is faster here by definition.
You want to know what is in the document and why
For each document type there is an explanation of what it has to contain and which provision that follows from, with a link to the official register. That is worth reading even if you end up commissioning the document from a lawyer.
You want to know about a change in the law before it happens
Future wordings are published in the register in advance, so the alert arrives before the amendment takes effect. This is why the tool still makes sense once you have the documents.
You first need to find out what you are missing
The free website check goes through your address and lists which mandatory information is not there. Even if you leave the fix to a lawyer, you will come to them with a list.
Common misconceptions
A document from a lawyer is automatically unchangeable and valid forever
It is not. Even a text prepared by a firm goes out of date when the law it rests on changes. The difference is not in how long the text lasts, but in who monitors the changes and who is responsible for the content.
Once I have documents from a tool, I no longer need a lawyer
Documents cover ordinary operations. They do not deal with a dispute, an inspection, or a situation that is out of the ordinary. The sensible approach is to have the ordinary texts prepared by a tool and to call a lawyer for what is genuinely yours.
A lawyer's template and a lawyer's service are the same thing
They are not. A template is a text prepared in advance for an indeterminate set of cases. A legal service is an assessment of your matter. We distinguish the two as well, and each document type states which case applies.
Frequently asked questions
Is Paragrafo a law firm?
No. Paragrafo is a software tool and does not provide legal services within the meaning of Act 586/2003 Coll. on the legal profession. It provides general legal information and automatically generated documents.
Who is responsible for a document I generate?
You are. The tool prepares the text from your details and shows which provisions it rests on, but does not take on responsibility for whether it suits your situation. In a borderline case we recommend having the text reviewed by a lawyer.
Can a lawyer work with a document prepared by Paragrafo?
Yes, and it is cheaper than drafting from scratch. The lawyer receives a finished text together with the references to the provisions and only deals with what is different in your case.
How much does a document from a lawyer cost?
A lawyer's fee is set by agreement with the client or by the tariff for legal services, so no single figure can be given. The difference from a subscription is that you pay per act, not per period.
Where to check this in the law
This page compares approaches, not provisions, which is why it deliberately carries no section numbers. The verbatim wording from the official register is with the individual topics.