Business owners want to make sure that their operations are running smoothly, that they are minimizing potential risks where possible and that they are in a position to handle any unexpected problems as easily as possible.
Because your business deals with other companies, people and their actions, it is important that you have a contract with every business relationship you have. As a business owner, hiring a lawyer for advice on contracts is essential to ensuring that you achieve these goals.
Having a complete contract is very important, you don’t want to have a problem come up and then find that your contract is missing important terms or clauses.
A lawyer can make sure your contract is complete, addresses each party’s responsibilities and contains the terms and clauses you need to protect yourself and your business.
You should also have contracts written by other people reviewed. In doing so your lawyer will pay special attention to certain missing key terms and make suggestions about additional clauses.
Whether you are getting a contract drafted or reviewed it’s important for an attorney to be a part of the process. That way, you can get a properly written contract to help protect you from unforeseen circumstances.
Hopefully, you won’t ever have to worry about enforcing any of your contracts, but there is no guarantee.
You’re going to want to make sure that you can enforce your contracts if something does go wrong. Many generic contracts from online form generator sites (LegalZoom or Rocket Lawyer) have loopholes or are in complete.
It’s impossible for those services to understand your specific needs and draft a contract for your business. Some other form contracts or resources found online are often out of date or not inline with best practices.
Usually, if you have a lawyer draft a contract for you they will draft it so it favors you more than the other party. This doesn’t mean it’s an unfair agreement, it just means you are being given more protection than you would be if you used another contract.
Getting a lawyer to help you put everything together can help an agreement be more favorable to you.
Having a lawyer get involved at the beginning of your contract process can help you avoid expensive disputes that often come up with poorly written contracts.
You’ll want to make sure all laws are being complied with, who is responsible for what and when, and in some cases you can even address dispute resolution in the agreement in order to make it as easy as possible should a dispute actually arise.
Contracts are legally binding documents, so it’s important that you understand what you are signing, and what your responsibilities are.
You don’t want to put yourself in the situation of signing an agreement that you don’t understand. Problems arise by people signing something they don’t read or understand. If something is in the contract, it’s likely enforceable, even if you didn’t read it.
A lawyer can help you understand everyone’s responsibility, what your options are and make sure you are going into the agreement with a firm grasp of the entire contract.
I know money can be tight when you are running a small business or getting it up and running, but managing your contracts will be way more affordable than dealing with a contract dispute.