[consulting] Consulting Contract

[Dave Hall]

On Mon, 2010-03-29 at 12:03 +1100, Ryan Cross wrote:
> This continues to come up on this list. I think the main reason people
> don't post this kind of material is:
> 
> 1) For a good contract, people usually pay a significant amount of
> money for them so they usually don't feel like sharing as much

Not only that, the copyright over the contract is usually owned by the
solicitor and licensed to their client for their internal use and for
their direct clients.

> 2) Each contract is also usually unique to the situation including,
> location the contract is valid for, 

Even between states the legal requirements can change.  My advice,
always have a contract in your home jurisdiction - it is  lot easier to
enforce.

> type of  contract/work being done,
> type of business entities involved, and the actual scope of work.
> (Contracts as a subject have many books published about it, and entire
> courses dedicated to the subject in law schools)

Schedules can usually deal with that - see my other post in the setup
thread.

> 3) Contracts can also sometimes be seen as part of the competitive
> advantage for a company since it includes, among other things, pricing
> structures.

I keep all of this in my schedule to the contract and would be happy to
provide a schedule with XXX per day or YYY per hour rates in them, but
without the contract it is pretty useless.

> 4) Posting any kind of legal information also makes you potentially
> liable for anyone who uses this information and/or takes your advice.

Disclaimers deal with that.

> Each of these items can probably be mitigated or worked around to some
> extent, but the bottom line is that it is actually quite hard to
> publish this kind of material compared to things like technical
> documentation.

I think that there is some merit in having a some generic advice on what
people should look at having in their contracts.  At the same time I
think it is important to find a good solicitor who understands business
law, Intellectual/Imaginary Property and the GPL to draft something that
fits the needs of the individual business.

Cheers

Dave