Talked to an old paralegal about my contract language

I was at a coffee shop in Denver last week, bitching to a friend about a client who kept pushing scope. This older lady next to me chimed in. She was a paralegal for 20 years. She read one of my contracts and laughed. Told me my "additional work" clause was basically worthless. Said I needed to spell out exactly what happens if they add more than 3 revisions or ask for new features. She showed me where my language was too vague. Made me feel like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. Now I'm redoing all my templates. Has anyone else had a random stranger totally change how they write their contracts?

3 comments

3 Comments

owens.laura4d ago

It's funny how that works isn't it. I swear half of life's biggest lessons come from random conversations with strangers, not from all the books and courses we pay for.

miaprice4d ago

Did you offer to buy her coffee? That kind of real world feedback is worth gold. My own wake up call came from a client who just stopped paying after I did extra work. The clause said "additional fees may apply" and that was it. A lawyer friend told me that "may" is a ghost word. It means nothing. I changed mine to say any work outside the scope gets an automatic 50% surcharge and requires a signed change order first. No more gray area.

max_schmidt774d ago

Oh man, that "may" being a ghost word hit me right in the gut. I literally used to have the same thing in my contracts and thought I was being all professional. Funny how you learn the hard way, right? My own wake up call was way more embarrassing though. I had a client who I did all this extra work for and when I sent the bill they just laughed and said "the contract says may, not will." Felt like such a fool. Switched to a flat "any extra work costs double" clause the next week. Still makes me cringe thinking about it.