Episode 35: Organizing Your Contract Clauses

In this episode I discuss why it's important to organize all the clauses in your contract (which are the small paragraphs that relate to a specific point). From listing the parties to the contract at the beginning, to setting the duration and time period (aka the contract stops at some point), to ensuring your specific clauses are at the top, to the miscellaneous clauses you should have at the bottom, this episode will help you get your contract clauses in the correct order!

Things we talked about:

• Organizing your contracts from the most important clauses at the top to what we call the “boilerplate clauses” at the bottom.

• Put your fees, cancellation, rescheduling, clauses all at the top… and then your entire agreement, transfer, and other miscellaneous clauses at the bottom.

• Every contract should start by introducing both parties by their legal names and legal business addresses.

• You can add abbreviations to be used throughout the contract, but only after you cite the proper names first such as "Client" and "Company".

• Specify duration of the contract.

• Clearly define the scope of work.
• Specify fees and payment terms including a later payment clause.

Here are a few quotes:

• (2:48) "I firmly, firmly believe that contracts need to be organized, a certain way, in order for your client to best understand it."
• (5:00) “You need to organize from the most important to the least important or what I like to call the essential boilerplate language clauses that are at the bottom.”
• (8:48) "The scope of work is the package that they're purchasing from you"
• (11:09) "Fees are really important to people who are signing your contract as a client. So those need to be at the tippy tippy top of your client contract when you organize it. "

Links mentioned:

The Legal Paige Contract Shop