As a freelance web developer, I'm curious whether many of you hire a lawyer to take care of legal terms like privacy policies and terms of service for your clients' websites. Is it more common to leave it to the client to handle these legal necessities, or does it depend on the specific project and the client's needs? I'm looking for the most professional approach to manage this aspect of my work. Would love to get your thoughts!
5 Answers
It's a risky move to provide legal text yourself. If you're offering legal content, you might open yourself up to liabilities. I usually give clients some generic text as a placeholder, but the real legal content is their responsibility.
Most freelancers I know just grab some boilerplate legal text from sites like Termly or Iubenda and call it a day. If a client really needs solid legal docs, they should handle that with their own lawyer—it's not really our job as developers.
I've found that it depends on the client and what they're looking for. Larger clients usually bring their own legal terms, but for smaller ones, I draft terms to the best of my ability and remind them to consult a lawyer to make sure everything is legit.
It's ultimately the client's responsibility to make sure all the legal aspects are correct. I usually just go along with what they want. For any of my personal projects, I might consult a lawyer when necessary, as I have a decent understanding of the laws, but it's mostly on the client.
The legal responsibility really falls on the client as the business operator. I always recommend they have their own lawyer review the terms and conditions, and I'm here to assist with the technical aspects. It just makes more sense that way.
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