29
Update: My client's 'simple' contract change turned into a 4-hour legal review
They wanted to add a clause about owning all preliminary sketches, which meant I had to dig through old emails and call my lawyer. Has anyone else had a tiny edit blow up like that?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
the_mary6d agoTop Commenter
Oh totally. It's the 'innocent' wording that gets you. A client once asked to add 'and related materials' to a deliverables list. That one phrase meant we had to review every single piece of background research and draft notes from the whole project to make sure they weren't suddenly claiming ownership of our internal team's work process. What looked like two words added a full day of back and forth with legal.
3
carr.cora6d ago
Yeah, those tiny word changes can totally rewrite the whole deal.
6
ray_burns5d ago
Read an article about a contract where "including but not limited to" was slipped into a list. That phrase basically gave the other side permission to ask for anything they could vaguely link to the project. The lawyers had to spend weeks defining the exact limits.
3