Legal Fees: Avoiding Sticker Shock
I just got off the phone with the founder of a website that caters to small businesses. He commented that small-business owners routinely suffer sticker shock when they receive invoices from their attorneys. I responded that lawyers can do three things to reduce the likelihood that the amounts of their fees will be a surprise. (more…)
How detailed should a legal document be?
This topic was suggested by Tim Greene at FizzTalk based on a comment posted at the LinkedIn Legal Blogging group.
In my experience, a document’s level of detail should be driven by the nature of the business transaction and the parties’ relationship. I will give some examples both from in-house work and from my private practice that pertain to agreements with independent contractors.
Long and Detailed
When I was VP and Legal Counsel at Visa, I negotiated hundreds of contracts. Given that most were for IT products or services, a lot of money often was at stake, especially if a relationship was to continue for a period of years.
Accordingly, I prepared a series of detailed standard-form agreements – typically 15-20 pages – that served as a starting point. To minimize the amount of negotiation that would be required, the agreements were reasonably balanced, yet they, nevertheless, protected my client’s essential business and legal interests.
The agreements were long, but the length was justified by (a) the size of the deals and (b) the fact that each standard-form agreement would be used many times in the future, with minor revisions as required.
