Collection of documents that startups commonly need: Privacy Policy, NDA, etc... (opens in new tab)

This isn't true. Email disclaimers can't unilaterally create a contract between the sender and receiver. This doesn't mean they are legally worthless.

Two legally useful email disclaimers: "this is not legal advice" and "this is not an offer to buy or sell securities".

These are both legally binding, because they merely remove potential ambiguity from an email and explicitly state the absence of a contract. Without the disclaimer, the text of an email might otherwise be interpreted to mean that a contract was present.

The comments for that article are worth a read:

     Zouf wrote:

     While you are mostly correct, there is one good legal use of an email footer:
     to declare the data above it as confidential, and therefore comply with
     confidentiality agreements that protect only data that has been explicitly
     declared as confidential.

I found this one particularly funny:

     stewsnooze wrote:

     Practice what you preach.......

     This e-mail may contain confidential material. If you are not an intended
     recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies. It may also contain
     personal views which are not the views of The Economist Group. We may
     monitor e-mail to and from our network...

http://www.economist.com/comment/886653#comment-886653

I wouldn't start leaving them out just yet.

Thanks...yeah, we appreciate that an email disclaimer isn't necessarily the most effective means legally, but they're still in such wide-spread use that they do carry a certain weight to them that a lot of people find re-assuring to have, hence their inclusion.

We hope a lot more people will find the privacy policy, NDA and the coming terms of use more helpful...and we hope to have some other documents up soon, too...so, don't forget to bookmark it! :)

Go ahead and use full URLs. HN will shorten its display if it's too long, and we prefer to see where we're going.

We feel all the documents on PearWords are solid, concise and fair to both parties.

That said, we've not had these certified by a practicing lawyer simply because even if we do most people would still rather have a lawyer they know and trust do it for them before signing a contract, especially considering the variety of territories that PearWord's audience is located. It should be a fair bit cheaper to have a lawyer look over and change where appropriate any details than have them write an original document for you.

PearWords strongly advise that any person have a lawyer vet and modify where necessary any legal documents before signing them, no matter the situation.

Thanks for your comment! :)

I second that.

On a side note - It's very strange that there's no email address, no name of the person/persons behind this, no twitter account etc. Just the contact form.

I mean, I'd like to follow whoever did this on twitter.