Earlier this week we went over some of the legal precautions you should consider when hiring freelancers or independent contractors. Ensuring that you ALWAYS use a written agreement in a freelancer relationship was the very first thing we advised you to do. Why? Contracts protect both the freelancer and the party hiring him/her. It prevents misunderstandings and it lays out the roles and responsibilities for each party to the agreement.
When dealing with freelancer contracts specifically, the people over at Entrepreneur Magazine created a checklist of things that must be done. We have provided a summary of the advice they laid out below.
o Ensure that your contract includes (1) an offer, (2) acceptance and (3) compensation. Without these three things, your contract is NOT valid.
o Draft your contracts using “clear, specific and detailed enough to cover all the important points or clauses.”
o Use “plain language, which is clear and easily understood.”
o “Full names and titles of the people with whom you're doing business. Be sure they're all spelled correctly.
o Make a list of everything that needs to be done to achieve the project goals.
o “Write a global description that specifies every aspect of the task you've been asked to do.”
o Create a record of all of the responsibilities of each party in achieving the project goals. Don’t forget to include create a list of “checkpoints [both parties] can refer to as the work progresses.
o Always ensure that the person hiring the freelancer signs-off at each checkpoint to ensure satisfaction with the work being done.
o Don’t forget to include the total compensation for the work being done and the schedule for when payments ought to be made.
o “Specify the start and end date of the project, and indicate any pertinent dates in between (including… the client sign-off… [and] payment dates).”
o Always include page numbers in your contracts. This ensures that no one will be able to add “pages to the contract that not everyone has agreed upon.”
To get a full understanding of the recommendations listed above, we advise you to read to read the original piece over at Entrepreneur Magazine.
While this checklist highlights the most important things you should include in your freelancer agreements, as a contracts attorney I can assure you that there are more provisions you may want to include. These include provisions for “legal recourse in the event of nonpayment, nonperformance clause (as in what will happen if either party reneges on his or her obligations), and so on.” If it is at all possible, you should have an attorney review your freelancer agreement (or at a minimum use one of those internet based legal service providers).
If you want to learn more about what to look for in a contract or if you want to understand what the various provisions in a contract really mean, checkout our Contracts Cheat Sheet.
