Setting up a corporation through one of those document preparation Web sites

Factual Questions
1

For exceedingly dry and irrelevant reasons, we need to open an S-Corp in Maryland as soon as possible (need answer fast!).

Though one of the benefits of a Maryland attorney over a fill-in-the-blank corporation-creation service is the ability to ask questions, we do not have any. Those have all been answered locally with our New York attorney. He did not have an opinion on this OP.

So from that starting point, we can either head to the internet to find a Maryland attorney to handle all the paperwork or we can pay one of the bajillion “let us help you form a corporation” Web sites to send us the correct forms and simple instructions. I could also spent time I don’t have on Maryland’s government sites, but time is short and it’s one thing to find the forms, it’s another to be sure we didn’t overlook something.

Has anyone had experience with the online services?

2

I used Nolo to get my S corp started. Worked great!

3

If you’re positive that you need a Maryland S Corp, then a document preparation service is probably fine. My experiences were with LegalZoom, but others are fine. LegalZoom has (or, at least, had as of a couple years ago) some pretty decent people who can help you through the choices you do have to make in filling out the information.

What people are usually missing in terms of help from those sites is the background or big picture issues - i.e. they think they need a Maryland S corp, but are totally wrong.

4

For instance, one thing an attorney might advise one of is that fact that there is no such thing as a “Maryland S Corp”—the S Corp election is done separately with the IRS after having incorporated under the laws of a given state.

But, it’s your call, I guess. Good luck!!