confident that the contract really says what you think it says?
Contracts are important to your business. Learn to read and write “lawyer-speak” and protect your bottom line and valuable business relationships.
What are contracts and why are they important?
Contracts are an integral and crucial part of your business. You enter into contracts with all of your business’ stakeholders: partners, clients, suppliers, government authorities, employees, consultants and many others. These parties are known in lawyer-speak as “co-contractors.” Contracts lay down on paper what you and your co-contractor intend to do. Regardless of what you think each party must do, the contract is the final word.
Do your contracts say what you think they say?
A contract that is unclear, omits important points or fails to anticipate all the possibilities that can arise represents a significant risk to your business. More importantly, it can take away precious time and attention from what you do best: generating profit and managing your business.
Getting a lawyer to review the contract and advise you of the legal implications is important. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, you are signing the contract, not your lawyer. You are in the best position to identify what may be unclear or what may be missing. Nobody, not even your lawyer, knows your business as well as you do.
When you sign on the dotted line, are you confident that the contract properly reflects the business deal you have agreed to? Would you like to feel more empowered when doing so? Here’s how we can help.
Our solutions
We offer solutions that empower you to read and understand contracts and draft them so that they clearly set out what each party must do. We offer workshops and individual coaching that cover:
- Understanding context: contracts don’t exist in a vacuum.
- Formation: know when “yes” means “yes we have a contract.”
- Organization: write coherently the story of your business deal so that anyone can understand it.
- Reading skills: how to read lawyer-speak and cut through long sentences.
- Writing skills: how to write business points in a clear and concise manner.
- Key clauses: clearly define term and termination, dispute resolution process and governing law to set the rules of the game.
- Boilerplate clauses: know what they are and why they matter.
- Putting it all together: walk through a contract and apply all the tools step by step.
- Dissecting a transaction: negotiate more tactically by knowing what contracts and documents are used at each step.
Benefits
The benefits of learning these skills for your business are numerous:
- Decrease business risk and the potential for disagreements with your co-contractors. Do not let poorly drafted contracts interfere with generating profit, capitalizing on opportunities and developing valuable business relationships.
- Feel confident when dealing with contracts, not apprehensive. Give yourself an edge in negotiating business deals.
- Reduce legal bills by having your lawyer focus on what he or she does best: advise you of the legal implications of the contract, not rewriting sentences and correcting minor deficiencies. Lawyers are very expensive editors and proof-readers!
- Avoid potential future legal disputes, lengthy court proceedings and expensive lawyer fees. A few minutes invested in properly reading and writing the contract can save you a lot of time, energy and money in the future.
