When a client walks in with an unpaid invoice for twenty thousand crowns (roughly EUR 800), we have two options. Tell them our hourly rate is higher than their entire claim, and send them away. Or help them.
For a long time we chose the first. It wasn't that we didn't want to help; the economics of a law firm simply don't work for disputes where the cost of representation exceeds the value of the claim. At least we were honest about it: "It's not worth it." We shook hands and parted ways. The client left frustrated, we earned nothing and the problem stayed unsolved.
So we decided to change that.
¶ What we built
On paragraf.tools, a separate website we run, you will now find a set of free legal tools for the situations people most often bring to us. For now the tools are available in Czech only, because they work with Czech law and Czech rates.
¶ Why for free
Because these things aren't worth a consultation.
A demand letter is a standardised document, a claim for an unpaid invoice has an established structure and a tariff calculation is arithmetic. None of this requires five years of law school and years of practice. All it takes is knowing the right form and the current figures.
That is exactly what the tools help with. They don't advise you and they don't assess whether you have a claim. They take the routine off your hands, so you don't pay for something you can do yourself.
That leaves us free to focus on what isn't routine: corporate governance, complex transactions and disputes where strategy and experience matter more than the format of a filing.
¶ What's in it for us
Let me be straightforward: we are not doing this out of pure philanthropy.
Someone whose twenty-thousand-crown claim our generator helps with will remember us when they need a lawyer for a matter worth two million. And they will come to us, because they know we helped them even though we earned nothing from it.
A lawyer who uses our tariff calculator every day knows who we are. When they need a cooperating firm in Brno, they will call us.
An in-house lawyer who checks a costs statement with our tool will come back when looking for outside counsel for corporate work.
It is an investment in a relationship that starts with giving something for nothing in return. In the legal profession that is unusual. We don't think it should be.
¶ What the tools don't do
The tools don't provide legal advice, don't assess whether a claim is justified, don't guarantee success and cannot replace an individual assessment by a lawyer.
If your dispute turns on the interpretation of a contract, if the facts are contested or if the other side has a lawyer and you don't, you need a lawyer, not a generator.
The tools help with simple matters; we handle the complex ones. What you pay your own lawyer for a dispute and what the court awards you is covered in Attorney's fees in court. Whether a dispute is worth starting at all is the subject of Not every battle is worth fighting. And when the work a lawyer is doing isn't really legal work, and the client would be better off elsewhere, is what I write about in The lawyer as illusionist.
¶ How it works technically
Calculations run directly in your browser, with no registration and no account. We don't send the data you enter into the calculators to a server. The exception is the Word export in the demand letter and payment order generators: the text of the document is sent to our server function, which turns it into a DOCX file and sends it back to you without storing it in a database. On your click, the tariff calculator also retrieves company details from ARES, the Czech public business register. Your browser remembers your calculation history until you delete it.
Without your consent we use only essential storage: one technical cookie and your browser's local storage. Analytics cookies (Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity) run only after you consent.
You can download documents from the generators as DOCX or save them as PDF through your browser's print dialog. Interest and tariff calculations can be downloaded as an XLSX spreadsheet. None of this costs anything.
If our tools help you, we will be glad. And if you run into a situation where they aren't enough, get in touch.
Mgr. Jan Vytřísal, Partner
IUSTORIA, advokátní kancelář, s.r.o.
¶ Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to use IUSTORIA's legal tools?
Nothing. The tools on paragraf.tools are free, with no registration, no account and no charges.
How does the late-payment interest calculator work?
You enter the amount owed and the due date, and it calculates statutory late-payment interest at the Czech National Bank's repo rate valid on the first day of the calendar half-year in which the payment became overdue, plus 8 percentage points. That rate applies for the entire period of delay (Section 2(1) of Government Regulation No. 351/2013 Coll.).
Can I prepare a payment order application myself?
Yes, for a claim for payment of money. The generator guides you through entering the parties, the claim and the evidence and produces a filing with a correctly worded prayer for relief. A separate guide walks you through filing an electronic payment order via the Czech justice portal.
Do the tools store my data?
Data from the calculators is not sent to a server, but your browser remembers your calculation history until you delete it. When you export a filing to Word, the text of the document is sent to a server function that creates the file and does not store it in a database. Analytics cookies run only with your consent.
Why does a law firm give its tools away for free?
Routine documents and calculations aren't worth a paid consultation, and the firm can then focus on complex matters. It openly treats this as an investment in a relationship: someone helped for free will come back when they need a lawyer for a bigger matter.