Overview
(Note: this is a 3 hour mini workshop) Far too many people — freelancers, contractors and businesses — see contracts as a major burden, or significant cost, to be avoided, rather than as the powerful, cost-effective business tool they are.
Contracts are vital for establishing mutual expectations and ground- rules — the keys to a good relationship. Good contracts can help you create the foundation for a good quality of life; bad contracts can result in horrible nightmares.
While there is no such thing as a ‘perfect’ contract, it is possible to learn how to write a good contract, to protect your interests, with little cost and difficulty. In this presentation, through a broad discussion of what contracts really are, and how to structure them effectively, R will cover many important issues for freelancers such as:
– Terms of Payment
– Performance Expectations
– Intellectual Property Ownership
– Disclosure
– Right of Publicity
– Circumvention
– Competition
– Liabilities and Warranties
– Alternative Dispute Resolution
R is not a lawyer — this presentation is presented from the perspective of someone who has been a freelancer, and one who has hired and worked with them, and who has spent a fair amount of money on lawyers over the years, figuring out the optimal ways to handle these vital issues cost effectively. This is a 1-hour set of the main topics from R’s four-hour course on Service Contracts for Freelancers (more info at: http://richmediainstitute.com/training/contracts/ )
