Get Legal: Find the form that fits

Get Legal is a new online reference and decision making tool, to help individuals and organisations find the most appropriate legal structure.

Get Legal offers clear guidance and information about legal structures. It aims to help individuals, organisations and advisors to make informed decisions as they set up and develop charities, social enterprises and co-operatives. It also explains a range of legal forms in detail.  The Resources section of the site contains information on where to go for further advice and support, a glossary of terms and case studies to bring the legal forms to life. It also provides standard governing documents and explanatory notes, which can be downloaded for free and adapted to your organisation's requirements.

Underpinning all this is a bespoke decision making tool, which asks a series of simple questions about your organisation and its aims, providing links to help and resources along the way.

Who created Get Legal?

Get Legal is a partnership project.  Getlegal is owned and created by NCVO.  All legal content has been produced by Bates, Wells and Braithwaite (BWB), and the design work and website development has been carried out by communications agency Society Media.

The website has been developed in association with Cooperatives UK, Acevo, CSC, the Charity Commission and the CIC regulator.  Other organistaions and individuals have also been involved in the process of creating the website.

A site like this cannot hope to be comprehensive, and will always be under development in terms of the information it provides. The partners behind the initiative are keen to ensure that this site can listen to and learn from experts already providing advice in these areas. If you have any suggestions or advice on how this site can be improved or added to, we would be delighted to hear from you.

For individuals and organisations

If you are thinking of setting up a charity, social enterprise or co-operative, then this site aims to be a useful starting point for your journey. It will help you to map out the different legal routes open to you and understand what information you need to make the decsion. While it aims to be clear and simple, we would urge you to make use of the additional help available from a range of support organisations, information about which is available in the resources section of this site.

"I've just visited Get Legal - it's brilliant! Really clear, really well laid out, really easy to find things, all in plain English."

Visit Get Legal

For advisors

As a navigator offering direction to your clients, we hope that you will make use of the resources that this site provides. It aims to act both as a compass and reference tool, providing a framework for your discussion with groups and individuals.

"I think this site is excellent and has been needed for a long time! I've already sent the link to a colleague at an advice network and urged them to have a look and help people to use it who they support."

Visit Get Legal

Training

As part of the Leadership and Governance National Support Services we offered training for development workers and advisors on legal structures around the country.  This training was only suitable for advisors who provide information to individuals and organisations about Legal structures. We are currently investigating whether we can run further courses.  Once we have confirmation of dates we will publish details on this page. 

Take part in our discussion

If you are interested in legal structures or would like to share your experiences of finding the right legal structure why not take part in our online discussion? http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/Getlegaldiscussion