How contract review services can make or break your business

 Contracts are legally binding documents and must be taken seriously. Failure to do so can have serious financial consequences.

Having your contract reviewed by an appropriately qualified professional prior to execution is the best way to ensure that you are not agreeing to anything that is contrary to your interests. 

Contracts are usually drafted in favour of the drafting party. This makes the legal contract review process even more important with the contract lawyer if you are the counter party to ensure that the contract is not prejudiced against you prior to signature.

 

How do legal contract review services add value?

The best contract review services assist you by:

Ensuring that the agreement is legally binding and enforceable: Our solicitors ensure that the agreement complies with all relevant laws and regulations, and that it can be enforced in a court of law if necessary. This includes checking for any provisions that may be illegal or unenforceable.

Clarifying confusing language: Our solicitors simplify and paraphrase legal jargon, wordy sentences and defined terms to help our clients understand their obligations. Our solicitors will not only help you understand the terminology but also how the contract could affect you or your business. They can also help you see and avoid any potential hazards as well as misunderstandings and disputes. Carefully reviewing and analysing an agreement can help to avoid misunderstandings and disputes down the line. Our solicitors can help to clarify any ambiguous language or provisions, and if you engage redrafting services, can ensure that the agreement is clearly written and easy to understand.

Highlighting commercial opportunities: Our solicitors can help you negotiate more favourable terms by using their experience and commercial awareness as well as their expertise and knowledge of the law to point out area in which you could leverage your own interests in line with market standards. For example, if one of our solicitors is reviewing your consultancy agreement, they may suggest language that affords greater protection over any intellectual property that results from that engagement.

 

Assessing your liabilities: Our solicitors’ primary duty is to protect the interests of our clients. This includes ensuring that the terms of the agreement are fair and reasonable, and that the client is not being taken advantage of. This will also include giving advice on representations, warranties, indemnities and limitations on liability to ensure that your risk profile is commensurate with the value of the agreement and or/ benefit you will receive.

 

Flagging where statute and regulations affect your position: Whilst parties often have freedom of contract to determine the terms and conditions of any agreement, there are many terms that are implied by statute or common law. Our solicitors can highlight where these laws can assist you and in some cases where such laws will make your desired terms unenforceable.

 

Which contracts should be reviewed?

 Virtually any business contract can benefit from the review process. However, the most common services we provide are in respect of commercial contract review services as follows: It is available on the web development contract for the contracts. 

 

• Employment agreements

• Shareholder Agreements

• B2B service contracts

• IP licensing agreements

• Dispute settlement agreements

• NDA’s

• Loan agreements

• Partnership agreements

• Joint venture agreements

• Investment agreements

• Share subscription and option agreements

• Business and share sale agreements

Post execution review

Equally if you have an issue with a contract you have already signed, our solicitors can give you an appraisal of your liabilities and options. The primary purpose of a post-execution legal review is to assess you or your business’ risk of exposure and where a potential claim by either party has reared its head, advise on the merits and drawbacks of your position.

 

What can you do with this advice?

 After completion of your contract review, you can review any comments and either:

1). Accept terms and sign the agreement ‘as is’.

2). Use the comments from our solicitors to negotiate a better deal or engage us to negotiate on your behalf.

3). Engage our solicitors to redraft the contract based on our suggestions.

 

Our recommendations will depend on a number of factors including the importance of the agreement, your current situation, and the terms of the contract. We always give pragmatic, commercially-minded advice. Nonetheless, the final decision lies with you. We can give you the confidence and backing to request changes and improve agreements in your favour. You should not be worried about pushing back. Just blame us! That’s what we are here for.

 

How to gain the most from our Contract Review Service

You should always review the agreement before uploading via our platform for your solicitor to review. You can then make sure you are ‘focusing’ the review by asking the questions that concern you most. Without specific instructions we will carry out a general review, so if there is anything specific you are unsure of, you must mention it in the notes section prior to check out.

 

You must also be clear which party you are in the agreement and give us any relevant background for example, any deadlines and if there is a contentious area, what and why.

 

Whether your contract is unsigned needing a review, or already signed, needing a brief opinion about your situation, our review service allows for both.

 

Please visit Loft Legal’s Contract Review Service page for further assistance. We look forward to working with you!