You can. The law does not stop you. In most states, there is no requirement that an attorney draft your LLC operating agreement, and in several states there is no requirement that you have one at all. So yes, technically, you can open a Google Doc right now and start typing.
The question you should actually be asking is whether a document you write yourself will do what an operating agreement is supposed to do when it matters. And the honest answer to that question is almost certainly no.
Yes, You Can Write Your Own. That Is Not the Question.
Most states do not require a written operating agreement for an LLC to exist and operate legally. Florida does not require one. Nevada does not. Wyoming does not. You can form an LLC in those states, get your EIN, open a bank account, and start invoicing clients without a single word of internal governance on paper.
California, Delaware, Maine, Missouri, and New York are the states that do require one, and California's requirement is worth understanding specifically. Under California Corporations Code § 17701.10, the operating agreement governs the internal affairs of the LLC. When your agreement is silent on something, ambiguous, or unenforceable, California's default statutory rules step in. Those default rules were not written with your business in mind. They were written for the generic average LLC, which is not you.
The practical consequence of this is that gaps in your operating agreement do not leave a blank space. They get filled in by statute. If you have a two-member LLC and your agreement says nothing about what happens when one member wants to exit, California law has an answer for that. You may not like the answer. You almost certainly did not intend for that answer to apply to your situation.
This is why the question of whether you can write your own operating agreement misses the point entirely. The document will exist whether you write it carefully or carelessly. The statute will fill in whatever you leave out. The only variable is how much control you actually have over the outcome.
What an LLC Operating Agreement Actually Has to Do
An operating agreement for an LLC is not a formality. It is the governing document for your business, and it has to do several things simultaneously, all of them correctly.
It establishes ownership. Who owns what percentage, how those percentages were determined, and what it would take to change them. This sounds obvious until you have two founders who remember the equity conversation differently, and nothing in writing to resolve it.
It governs decision-making. Who can bind the company to a contract? Who can open a bank account? Who has the authority to hire, fire, take on debt, or sign a lease? A well-drafted operating agreement answers these questions before they become disputes. A template from the internet answers them generically, which is the same as not answering them at all.
It determines what happens when things go wrong. A member wants out. A member dies. A member stops contributing but refuses to leave. A member gets divorced and their spouse suddenly has a claim on their ownership interest. These are not hypothetical edge cases. They are the situations that destroy businesses and relationships simultaneously, and they are exactly what your operating agreement exists to address before they happen.
It also handles distributions, which is where a lot of LLC operating agreements fall apart quietly. When does money come out? How is it allocated? What happens if one member needs a distribution and the other does not? If your operating agreement is silent on this, you are relying on goodwill and a shared understanding that will not survive the first real disagreement.
Where DIY Operating Agreements Break Down
Here is what actually happens when someone uses an LLC operating agreement template they found online or downloaded from a legal document service.
The template covers the basics. It has sections for capital contributions, membership percentages, voting rights, and dissolution. It looks complete. It is formatted correctly. It has definitions at the front and signature lines at the back. Nothing about it signals that it is inadequate.
The problem is what it does not cover, and you will not know what is missing until the missing provision becomes a crisis. A template written for a generic LLC in a generic state does not account for California's specific default rules under the Corporations Code. It does not account for the fact that you have a two-member LLC where both members are also employees of the company. It does not account for your specific vesting schedule, your specific distribution preferences, or the specific circumstances under which you would want to force a buyout.
The other failure mode is provisions that are technically present but unenforceable as written. California courts have declined to enforce operating agreement provisions that conflict with non-waivable statutory rights, that are internally inconsistent, or that are so vague as to provide no actual guidance. A template cannot know whether its language conflicts with California Corporations Code § 17704.07, which governs management of member-managed LLCs. An attorney who practices in California does know this.
There is also the problem of what happens when the document is never updated. Washington's RCW 25.15 applies default statutory rules whenever an operating agreement is silent, and the same principle applies in California. If your business has changed, and your operating agreement has not, you are operating under rules you did not choose. Most people do not realize their three-year-old operating agreement stopped reflecting their actual business about two years ago.
The cost of a poorly drafted operating agreement is not immediate. It is deferred. You will not feel it when you sign it. You will feel it when a co-founder dispute goes to mediation and your agreement provides no mechanism for resolution. You will feel it when a member's divorce attorney argues that the LLC interest is marital property and your agreement has no transfer restriction language to push back with. By that point, the cost of fixing it is orders of magnitude higher than the cost of doing it correctly the first time.
This is not a DIY situation. Not because the law is impossibly complex, but because the document's failure mode is invisible until it is catastrophic. A template gives you the appearance of protection. An operating agreement drafted for your actual business gives you the protection itself.
Your Operating Agreement Is Not a One-Time Document
Even if you started with a well-drafted operating agreement, there is a reasonable chance it no longer reflects your business accurately. This is the part almost no one thinks about.
If your LLC has added a member, removed a member, changed its ownership percentages, taken on investors, shifted from member-managed to manager-managed, or changed its distribution structure, your operating agreement needs to reflect those changes. If it does not, you have a document that says one thing and a business that does something else. In a dispute, that gap is exploitable.
Pennsylvania added a new annual report requirement starting in 2026, which means LLCs in that state have new compliance obligations that may affect how their operating agreements interact with state law. Florida's annual report fee is $138.75, and while Florida does not require an operating agreement, any membership or management changes should prompt a review of the existing agreement for consistency. These are not exotic edge cases. They are the ordinary evolution of a real business, and your operating agreement has to keep up.
The other reason to review your operating agreement periodically is that your goals change. What you needed from this document when you were a two-person startup making $200,000 a year is not what you need when you are a three-person company with a revenue-sharing arrangement, a line of credit, and a strategic partner who wants equity. The document is not the strategy. But a document that no longer matches your strategy is actively working against you.
If you have not looked at your operating agreement in the last two years, look at it now. Not to panic, but to assess. Does it reflect who actually owns what? Does it reflect how decisions are actually made? Does it have a buy-sell mechanism that would work in a real dispute? If the answer to any of those questions is no, you already know what to do.
Delina drafts and reviews LLC operating agreements for California-based founders, creators, and multi-member businesses who need the document to actually work.
If you are ready to have your operating agreement drafted, reviewed, or rebuilt from scratch, book a paid intake with Delina. This is not a free call. It is a focused, strategic session with an attorney who has read everything above and has specific opinions about your situation.
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