Fastcase often solicits advice from lawyers about what libraries to add to its member benefits. One of the most popular requests has been to add legal forms to the database, such as contracts, wills, no-contest divorces, and other form documents. Accordingly, last month Fastcase announced that, in conjunction with U.S. Legal Forms, it has added legal forms to the online legal research member benefit.

In the largest law firms, nobody starts from scratch. Before drafting a new form, lawyers send an e-mail around or query the firm's database of forms, at least for a start. It’s useful to compare key terms, drafting provisions, and boilerplate language common to many different versions of the same type of documents. This kind of collaboration on legal forms is one of the many advantages of scale in larger firms.

Now lawyers in small firms and in-house counsel can have the same advantage with the Fastcase member benefit. You can either browse through a state-by-state topical index, or run a search over the database of forms. Most forms are available in Word format, for easy customization and editing. (Large firm lawyers should find the database helpful, too!)

Best of all, you only pay for forms if you use them, and you pay transactionally by the form, only when you select the form you want. You can search and view the results for free, and the forms range from a few dollars to about $35, so they are affordable, too. (Also cheaper than pulling your hair out every time you want to draft a document.)

To access forms, log in to Fastcase and select Search Legal Forms from the start page. You can either browse the index by state or search all the forms at once.