Was dead wrong about using plain text contracts for small clients

Figured PDFs were unprofessional but after an online legal forum showed me 3 horror stories of people getting sued over unclear email agreements I switched to a $50 template from a legal site and it saved me from a $2,000 dispute last month, anyone else find a cheap tool that actually works?

3 comments

3 Comments

aliceharris4d ago

Oh man, that template probably paid for itself a hundred times over. I had a client once try to claim our verbal agreement included free revisions forever because I said "we can tweak it later" in an email. Spent weeks going back and forth until I finally just ate the cost to shut them up. The cheapest thing that actually saved my butt was a simple fill-in-the-blank contract from a local small business center. Like 20 bucks and it had all the basic stuff like scope creep clauses and payment terms.

barbaradavis4d ago

Nah, contracts just make people defensive and ruin the trust that gets jobs done faster.

grantc804d ago

Funny timing on this, I was just reading a study the other day that said something like 70% of freelancers who start with a handshake deal end up wishing they had something in writing. Seems like trust works great until it doesn't, you know?