Must Terms of Service be written by a lawyer?
<p>I'm a programmer making a messaging service. And although I can get the software parts sorted out easily, I'm not really sure about the legal bits.</p>
<p>In particular, I'm not sure whether my Terms of Service (ToS) <em>have to</em> be written by a professional lawyer. Of course, I do understand that such a document written by a person knowledgeable in their field is certainly going to be better than anything I'm capable of writing at the moment, but is this absolutely required to be considered a valid document in most jurisdictions, most notably, the European Union?</p>

<blockquote>
<p>is this absolutely required to be considered a valid document in most jurisdictions, most notably, the European Union?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not at all. There is no legal requirement that contracts, terms of service, and so forth be drafted, devised, or even validated by a lawyer.</p>
<p>Law requires that certain types of contract be <em>notarized</em>. That refers to the moment where the parties sign/formalize the contract, which is different from --and independent of-- whether its terms were <em>written</em> by a lawyer. A messaging service like the one you have in mind definitely is not subject to such requirement either.</p>

<h2>It’s impossible to say</h2>
<p>There are several hundred (at least) jurisdictions in the world. There are 28 nations in the EU (shortly to be 27) and many of them have sub-national jurisdictions (the UK has 3).</p>
<p>Most of these have restrictions on the “practice of law” and each of those defines “practicing law” differently. In <a href="https://business.gov.au/Products-and-services/Contracts-and-tenders/Laws-affecting-contracts" rel="nofollow noreferrer">some</a> (e.g. <a href="/questions/tagged/australia" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;australia&#39;" rel="tag">australia</a>) the drafting of contracts is not practicing law, in <a href="https://nickkam.com/2011/10/10/drafting-a-contract-is-practicing-law/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">others</a> (e.g. <a href="/questions/tagged/california" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;california&#39;" rel="tag">california</a>) it is.</p>
<p>Further, there may be some classes of contract (e.g. for sale of real estate) that must be drafted by a lawyer and others where it’s not necessary.</p>
<p>Also, what consequences flow from an ‘illegally drafted’ contract will vary. It might be that the contract is still valid even though it exposes the drafter to sanctions, or it might make the contract void. Or voidable.</p>
<p>In most jurisdictions, you can always represent yourself in legal matters, however, a contract always involves someone who is not you.</p>
<p>If you want to ask a specific question (e.g. “Does a contract for [this] in [that] jurisdiction need to be drafted by a lawyer?) then an answer can be found. However, for the general question, the answer is: maybe.</p>

european-union terms-of-service authorship