Marc runs an industrial SME in the canton of Vaud. He employs around twenty people, exports part of his production to Europe and has just hired his first external sales manager. The proposed employment contract includes bonus, confidentiality and non-compete clauses. The employee asks for changes. Marc hesitates, fears making an expensive mistake, but he has no in-house counsel and no time to spend hours on the phone looking for an available lawyer. He postpones signing the contract, knowing that in the meantime the candidate could accept another offer.
This situation has become common for many SMEs in Switzerland. The legal reality of a small organisation is no longer simple. Between employment contracts, general terms and conditions, data protection, commercial leases, partnerships and disputes with customers, managers have to navigate a dense regulatory environment, without having the resources of a large group. Swiss law generally leaves some contractual freedom, but this freedom presupposes a good understanding of the limits, market practice and concrete risks associated with each clause.
For SMEs, the difficulty is not only to know the legal rule, but to understand how to apply it concretely to their activity. An IT service company in French-speaking Switzerland will not face the same issues as a restaurant, a garage or an online shop. Some sectors are subject to specific rules, others mainly deal with questions of liability, confidentiality or data protection. The manager often finds himself alone in sorting out what is important from what is secondary and deciding whether to adapt a contract template found on the internet or to consult a professional.
In this context, the classic reflex is sometimes to postpone legal questions. A standard employment contract is signed, general terms and conditions are copied from a competitor, a verbal agreement is made with a long-standing partner, on the assumption that everything will go well. As long as relationships are good, the problem remains invisible. It is when a dispute arises, when an employee challenges a clause, when a customer refuses to pay or when a partner leaves the collaboration that the company discovers the weaknesses of its documents and the absence of a legal strategy.
The obstacles are often the same. First, fear of costs. Many managers assume that an initial legal opinion will inevitably lead to a sizeable invoice that is difficult to budget. Then there is the issue of time. Between operations, team management, client relations and accounting, taking half a day to look for a lawyer, explain the situation and gather documents seems unrealistic. On top of that comes uncertainty about the right contact person. Is a specialist in employment law, commercial contracts, intellectual property, corporate law, or all of these needed? This uncertainty further delays the process.
The frequent mistakes that result are fairly predictable. Contradictory or overly vague clauses in contracts. Foreign templates adapted only roughly to the Swiss context. Commitments made by email without checking their legal implications. General terms and conditions copied without considering whether they are really applicable. Or a complete lack of written records for important agreements. At the time, this may seem to save time and avoid expenses. But in the event of a conflict, the company is left with few levers, many uncertainties and often much higher costs than if the situation had been clarified in advance.
The risks are primarily practical. Loss of time for the manager and the team, who are mobilised on a dispute instead of on developing the business. Unexpected expenses linked to proceedings, a contested dismissal or the renegotiation of a poorly drafted contract. Impact on relationships with key partners, who may lose confidence if the rules of the game are not clear. Not to mention the stress generated by a deadlock where nobody really knows what the most realistic legal way forward is.
It is precisely at this point that digital platforms and Legal Tech have begun to transform access to law for Swiss SMEs. Instead of randomly searching for a lawyer on the internet or via personal contacts, the manager can describe the situation online in a few minutes and upload the relevant documents securely. The need is qualified from the outset. Is it an employment issue, a commercial contract, data protection, or a combination of several areas? On this basis, the request can be directed to a lawyer who is genuinely suited to this type of matter.
The value of these solutions also lies in how they structure the first exchange. Instead of an informal phone call in which half of the important information is omitted, the platform guides the manager through a few targeted questions. For example, the type of contract, the number of parties involved, the current situation, applicable deadlines, and any existing documents. This preparation enables the lawyer to quickly understand the context and to focus on the essentials from the very first contact, which reduces time lost on both sides.
In addition, Legal Tech improves transparency on how the process will unfold. The manager can often know in advance what form the initial input will take, whether a video call is planned, which documents are required and within what timeframe a reply can be expected. Some platforms also provide indicative cost ranges for the first intervention, which helps the SME to plan and to decide on the next steps. The possibility of centralising everything online, without multiple calls and physical meetings, represents a significant time saving.
For recurring needs, such as updating employment contracts, general terms and conditions or subcontracting agreements, Legal Tech tools also make it possible to keep a structured record of the company’s legal documents. The manager can easily find the latest version validated with the lawyer, track changes and avoid different templates circulating in parallel within the organisation. This reduces the risk of using an outdated document that no longer reflects the current legal situation or the company’s recent practice.
The aim of these approaches is not to replace lawyers, but to make their intervention more accessible, faster and more targeted. The role of technology is to simplify the process, clarify the request and lower the threshold for the first contact. Once the exchange is established, it is the human expertise that makes it possible to take into account the specific characteristics of the sector, the size of the company, its internal culture and its priorities. A family-owned SME will not necessarily have the same approach to risk as a fast-growing start-up or a more structured group.
For an SME manager in Switzerland, the challenge is therefore not to become a legal expert, but to know when and how to seek support, preferably before a problem escalates into a dispute. Digital platforms and Legal Tech solutions offer a pragmatic entry point for asking questions, obtaining initial guidance and then deciding whether to go further, adapt a contract, renegotiate certain clauses or formalise an existing agreement. Each situation remains different and requires its own analysis, but it is possible to use digilegal.com to be put in contact with a specialised lawyer in Switzerland in less than 24 hours. For many SMEs, this gradual and structured approach helps to retain control, manage costs and address legal questions more calmly, while continuing to focus on developing their business.
