Our goal is to make legal documents accessible.

How did Docue UK start?

Docue UK was launched in October 2022. Our talented founding team includes Neil Edwards, Heather Stark, Ashleigh Evans, Caleb Hillyer and Hannah McIntyre. The versatile team combines years of legal and business expertise, which creates a genuine understanding of businesses' needs. This is where Docue differs from typical legal tech providers: it's a tool for entrepreneurs and business managers – not other lawyers.

Behind Docue UK is an international group whose story began in Finland in 2015, when Marko Teppo got the idea of ​​a new way to create contracts and other legal documents. As a lawyer who served hundreds of entrepreneurs, he knew how difficult entrepreneurs can find the contracting process and understanding their legal obligations.

Docue was founded to make it easy for entrepreneurs and business managers to prepare legal documents themselves - to avoid expensive mistakes and without external lawyers. Docue offers high-quality solutions for hundreds of different business situations. With our smart document templates, the contents are created with just the click of a button.

Docue is transforming the way businesses can access legal documents. The service takes away the need for businesses to invest in expensive (and time-consuming) legal services, and instead is an efficient and intuitive way of creating and storing legal documents. It’s a great way to free up a company’s time and money for other business matters.

- Heather Stark, Legal Team

Docue lawyers in a weekly meeting. Docue automates lawyers' manual work, and all entrepreneurs can enjoy the results.

Legal templates have been around for ages. What's wrong with traditional templates?

Traditional document templates can sometimes work great, but they also have numerous problems:

• random Word templates downloaded from the internet may have been drafted by amateurs; 

• the template may be out of date and not comply with current legislation;

• a suitable template is not always available, and creating documents from scratch is notoriously time-consuming and expensive;

• outdated information can accidentally remain in the document template (e.g. outdated legislation, incorrect contract clause, wrong date, etc.);

• important case-specific information can be missed the document (e.g. a special contract clause); and

• within a single company, there can be many versions of the same template at the same time, making their management chaotic and inconsistent.

So how is Docue changing the game with its "automated legal templates"?

Docue's automated legal templates have been coded with the same reasoning logic that a lawyer would use when meeting their client and drafting a document for them: every answer affects the content of the final document and the end result is a tailored document that is ready for signatures. Within Docue's service, this happens automatically, without an expensive and prolonged legal process.

Docue's automated templates have been coded with the same reasoning logic that a lawyer would use when meeting their client and drafting a document for them.

With Docue, there is no compromise on quality: all of our document content is designed by our own expert legal team and always complies with up-to-date legislation. As well as Docue utilising international technology, Docue is 100% localised to UK needs by the local legal team, which is made up of solicitors qualified in England and Wales.

Docue is unique from other contract management platforms because our service includes a large amount of high-quality legal content, that is constantly kept accurate and up to date.

The legal documents we provide are based on the laws of England and Wales. Over 100 automated templates are ready to use, which contain more than 2,000 legal clauses with numerous different combinations. Our service covers practically all business situations that entrepreneurs and other businesses may face. 

Docue is unique from other contract management platforms because our service includes a large amount of high-quality legal content, that is constantly kept accurate and up to date.

So, with Docue I get lawyer-grade legal documents that are automated. What about routine documents that don't involve high legal risks?

When dealing with routine documents, legal issues are not usually given much focus. Docue still ensures that there are no careless mistakes in the drafting with its automated content. 

If you have brought your company's own documents to the Docue service, you can easily manage the consistency of the documents, regardless of the author so that you have a uniform approach to contracts across your business.

Along with our automated templates, the service includes electronic signature and smart document storage where everything is saved automatically. So it's not just about templates, there's a top-class system around them that enables unprecedented efficiency in contract and document management.

How has Docue's business developed and where is it going?

We have grown rapidly in the UK, and we already have customers from more than 30 different industries. In particular, software companies, accounting firms, start-ups and companies providing  B2B expert services have quickly recognised the benefits of our service. However, no matter what industry or the size of the company, all companies need legal documents.

Docue has also had strong growth globally – today we have thousands of client companies and more than 170,000 users.

Docue was the 35th fastest growing technology company in its home country Finland in 2018–2021. Since then, growth has been fastest in the UK.

Docue's journey year by year:

2015:  The company is founded and the development of the Docue platform technology is started.

2016:  The first legal templates are created on the platform. Initially, templates were also developed for private individuals, but the focus was quickly shifted to companies.

2017:  The service is launched to the public in Finland, the country of its establishment. From the very beginning, it is possible to subscribe to the service on the website so that the user experience is as smooth and digital as possible.

2018:  Commercial breakthrough – the 10,000 user limit is broken and several hundred companies start actively using the service. 

2019:  Tailored document templates gain popularity (Docue templates personalised for single companies). Please keep this possibility in mind if you want to bring your company's own document templates to the service and increase their efficiency.

2020:  The arrival of Covid-19 gives momentum to Docue's business, when a large number of companies suddenly start digitising their contracts and documents. Docue supports distressed sole traders by granting them access to free templates related to crisis management.

2021:  Docue expands to Sweden and establishes an office in Stockholm.

2022:  Docue expands to the UK (England and Wales) and opens an office in London.

2023:  Docue expands further to Germany and opens an office in Berlin. At the end of the year, the entire Docue has more than 170,000 registered users.