Draft - why you should insist on its version
Every startup, like any business, is faced with the signing of contracts / agreements. At the first stage, these are office rental contracts, first employment contracts, etc. Over time, this com grows, and the folders in the lawyer's office increase in algebraic progression. And here it does not matter, whether this grocery company is outsourced, there will be more and more contracts.
I am a lawyer who is at the heart of IT, so my main jobs are IT companies, both market leaders and young companies, but in all I adhered to the same rule, always insist on signing my draft contract.
I will tell you about the need to develop a Contract case separately, this is a big topic for discussion, as well as the involvement of a lawyer in the company's staff. In this article I want to talk about the signing of their draft contracts.
')
First of all, you need to understand what legal issues await us and what the draft is from the point of view of legislators.
The current legislation of Ukraine and Russia does not regulate the obligation of a certain party to create a draft agreement. Thus, everyone is free to provide their option. Usually, in the practice of classical business, the contractor provides the contractor, and the customer is already making their edits.
In IT, everything is a bit wrong. Mostly the contract provides the one who pays. Large companies have long been signing only their own options, exceptions are perhaps contracts with banks, but not everything is so simple here - these dinosaurs have not yet learned how to respond to the modern market and refuse to understand that the 21st century is already in the yard and you need to be mobile and relevant .
Having come to a new startup, I always start by developing a contract box, where I include the most potential contracts. This saves a lot of time in the future, when it is necessary to conclude a contract, you do not spend extra hours on its development, but experience shows that at the beginning of the journey, a lawyer doesn’t have much to do, therefore you need to organize yourself.
This principle works well in outsourcing, but how to assume what contracts the product company will have? This is a separate story - it is important here that a lawyer understands the processes of work in such a company and imagines the final product, and also has legal experience. Separately, this topic in the future, we also reveal.
My draft is better
The reasons for which I use my own versions of draft contracts are simple. I wrote this contract myself and I know all his moments. I never use templates, each contract is developed from scratch, so it allows you to better write down all the conditions and features that a business puts. It is like a suit that is made specifically for you - it will always sit better than the one you bought already prepared.
The practice of small type is a thing of the past as well as the 90s, but still many points need to be correctly prescribed, and when we receive a ready-made project from a partner, we don’t know what the lawyer of another company was guided by. And therefore, we spend time on the initial reading, making corrections, coordination and repeated reading and so on in a circle. In a world where mobility and speed is the most valuable thing, spending time on meaningless repetition of procedures is a crime. In my own project, I know all the key points of the contract, what can be corrected, and what is fundamental.
Draft - as part of corporate culture
Any self-respecting company has its own corporate standards and culture. The culture of contracts and paperwork is an integral part of them. It is not at all the main, but nevertheless extremely important. For example, you provide application development work and the first thing your customers will encounter when starting to work with you are your draft contracts. In fact, this is the first impression about you, not counting the licked portfolio and the site, how you feel about your duties and most importantly the little things. And it’s very doubtful that you, as a lawyer, will bring respect for yourself to a manager if you submit a regular document template downloaded from the first link in Google and hastily modified by the manager for the signature.
In Formula 1, there is a saying, “Only a beautiful car can be fast.” Same with the contract. Only a beautiful and thoughtful contract can complement the client's confidence that you are professional and responsibly treat your work and trifles.
Neglect of the design of the contract is the first sign that the main work in the company you are also related. Of course, a sense of beauty is probably one of the most subjective. Just recently, I had a dispute about how to write a document in a font (which was never finished).
It would seem a trifle and it is not even worth the attention, but it is this attitude to the smallest details that shows the attitude to work as a whole. And there is no need to go far after the example, the genius Steve Jobs worked through every detail including the location of the elements on the board in Apple products that the user should never have seen. However, this perfectionism can be traced
everywhere in their products and as a result in financial performance.
Therefore, by submitting a draft agreement, I guarantee that the final contract will contain all the stipulated conditions, thereby avoiding unnecessary proceedings and understatement. This demonstrates the professionalism of the lawyer, as well as the level of the company. And it creates the first impression that the company will be attentive to the little things in their duties and to the wishes of the client.
I am a lawyer who is at the heart of IT, so my main jobs are IT companies, both market leaders and young companies, but in all I adhered to the same rule, always insist on signing my draft contract.
I will tell you about the need to develop a Contract case separately, this is a big topic for discussion, as well as the involvement of a lawyer in the company's staff. In this article I want to talk about the signing of their draft contracts.
')
First of all, you need to understand what legal issues await us and what the draft is from the point of view of legislators.
Draft - (English Noun) - draft, draft, draft.
The current legislation of Ukraine and Russia does not regulate the obligation of a certain party to create a draft agreement. Thus, everyone is free to provide their option. Usually, in the practice of classical business, the contractor provides the contractor, and the customer is already making their edits.
In IT, everything is a bit wrong. Mostly the contract provides the one who pays. Large companies have long been signing only their own options, exceptions are perhaps contracts with banks, but not everything is so simple here - these dinosaurs have not yet learned how to respond to the modern market and refuse to understand that the 21st century is already in the yard and you need to be mobile and relevant .
Having come to a new startup, I always start by developing a contract box, where I include the most potential contracts. This saves a lot of time in the future, when it is necessary to conclude a contract, you do not spend extra hours on its development, but experience shows that at the beginning of the journey, a lawyer doesn’t have much to do, therefore you need to organize yourself.
This principle works well in outsourcing, but how to assume what contracts the product company will have? This is a separate story - it is important here that a lawyer understands the processes of work in such a company and imagines the final product, and also has legal experience. Separately, this topic in the future, we also reveal.
My draft is better
The reasons for which I use my own versions of draft contracts are simple. I wrote this contract myself and I know all his moments. I never use templates, each contract is developed from scratch, so it allows you to better write down all the conditions and features that a business puts. It is like a suit that is made specifically for you - it will always sit better than the one you bought already prepared.
The practice of small type is a thing of the past as well as the 90s, but still many points need to be correctly prescribed, and when we receive a ready-made project from a partner, we don’t know what the lawyer of another company was guided by. And therefore, we spend time on the initial reading, making corrections, coordination and repeated reading and so on in a circle. In a world where mobility and speed is the most valuable thing, spending time on meaningless repetition of procedures is a crime. In my own project, I know all the key points of the contract, what can be corrected, and what is fundamental.
Draft - as part of corporate culture
Any self-respecting company has its own corporate standards and culture. The culture of contracts and paperwork is an integral part of them. It is not at all the main, but nevertheless extremely important. For example, you provide application development work and the first thing your customers will encounter when starting to work with you are your draft contracts. In fact, this is the first impression about you, not counting the licked portfolio and the site, how you feel about your duties and most importantly the little things. And it’s very doubtful that you, as a lawyer, will bring respect for yourself to a manager if you submit a regular document template downloaded from the first link in Google and hastily modified by the manager for the signature.
The devil is in the details
In Formula 1, there is a saying, “Only a beautiful car can be fast.” Same with the contract. Only a beautiful and thoughtful contract can complement the client's confidence that you are professional and responsibly treat your work and trifles.
Neglect of the design of the contract is the first sign that the main work in the company you are also related. Of course, a sense of beauty is probably one of the most subjective. Just recently, I had a dispute about how to write a document in a font (which was never finished).
It would seem a trifle and it is not even worth the attention, but it is this attitude to the smallest details that shows the attitude to work as a whole. And there is no need to go far after the example, the genius Steve Jobs worked through every detail including the location of the elements on the board in Apple products that the user should never have seen. However, this perfectionism can be traced
everywhere in their products and as a result in financial performance.
Therefore, by submitting a draft agreement, I guarantee that the final contract will contain all the stipulated conditions, thereby avoiding unnecessary proceedings and understatement. This demonstrates the professionalism of the lawyer, as well as the level of the company. And it creates the first impression that the company will be attentive to the little things in their duties and to the wishes of the client.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/297454/
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