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>>But it’s not just the contract that is useful for business-the very process of getting a contract can teach you a great deal about the person who you are thin
by toss1 3y ago
>>But it’s not just the contract that is useful for business-the very process of getting a contract can teach you a great deal about the person who you are thinking about joining in a business venture. Indeed, if done correctly, before you sign on the dotted line, the negotiation itself will tell you what is likely to happen.
THIS.
And a corollary I have found very useful is to examine any contract presented to you for how the terms are presented. If the terms are even-handed and mutual obligations, then fine.
But I often see heavily one-sided terms, with weasel-out clauses for them, and hard lines and penalties for us. In these cases, my rule is to simply withdraw from the negotiations, or do so after only one failure to try to negotiate fiar and equitable terms.
The lesson learned is that if they are trying to set you up in the contract with your hands tied behind your back, they WILL take advantage of you in any way they can. The one chance to fix it is in case they've just got an attny who 'thinks he's doing his job by being a bulldog' and they aren't paying attention to how it looks; if they fix everything immediately, I'll give them a pass, but it usually goes poorly, which is very revealing. Every time I've broken my rule, I've regretted it.
- VHRanger 3y agoI mean, it's standard to be presented a contract that heavily favors the party that wrote the first draft. But if you review it and ask for a bunch of changes, how they respond to the change requests is interesting. More importantly, this article makes me think about how enforceable the contract is, rather than just the terms.
- toss1 3y ago>>standard to be presented a contract that heavily favors the party that wrote the first draft. Yes, which is why I usually give them one chance to respond to fixes (but if there are too many, nope, not gonna leave dozens of adverse mines in there just because it's impractical to fix them all).0 Also, I've seen plenty of very even-handed contracts; I make sure all the ones I write/have written are even-handed and mutual. It is actually the standard practice for honest businessmen and top lawyers — good business builds mutually beneficial long-term relationships, not just short-term exploitative relationships. And yes, the fact that they hand you an exploitative contract is a huge tell, and how they respond when you try to make an exploitative contract more even and mutual (and put in enforcement teeth that will benefit your side) will tell you all you need to know about not doing business with them. No deal is worth being tied to an exploitative partner/investor/entity. It will always end up worse than you ever imagine.
- airstrike 3y ago> I mean, it's standard to be presented a contract that heavily favors the party that wrote the first draft. I'd argue that may be "common" but the "standard" should be to expect a contract that slightly favors the party that wrote the first draft while still sticking to what's market for the vast majority of the terms
- marcosdumay 3y ago> it's standard to be presented a contract that heavily favors the party that wrote the first draft. It's standard for contract negotiators to be sleazy people that you don't want to have any contact with. Some times that's not even an indication that your counterpart is dishonest. But still, that's quite a bad marker. Ignore it at your peril.