In Short
- A commercial contracts lawyer helps you identify and prepare the right contracts for your business, tailored to your products, services and risks.
- They can protect you from contractual risks by drafting terms that limit liability and prevent costly disputes.
- They also support contract negotiations, advising on terms and representing your interests to reach better deals.
Tips for Businesses
Get legal support for your contracts early: have a specialist review what agreements you need, tailor terms to your business and flag risky clauses before signing. Good legal advice can reduce disputes, protect your cash flow and strengthen your position when negotiating with clients or suppliers.
Table of Contents
- Why Is Legal Advice Regarding Commercial Contracts Important?
- 1. A Commercial Contracts Lawyer Can Tell You Which Contracts You Need
- 2. Commercial Contracts Lawyers Can Protect You from Contractual Risks
- 3. Commercial Contracts Lawyers Can Help You Successfully Negotiate Deals
- Key Takeaways
- Frequently Asked Questions
Commercial contracts can make or break a business. For example, your business contracts can help you get paid on time, save you time and money and help dramatically limit your liability if you breach your contractual promises. As such, it is vital to invest in well-drafted and robust commercial contracts tailored to your business, for your protection. Working with an experienced commercial contracts lawyer can help you achieve this. This article will explore three key benefits of working with a specialist commercial contracts lawyer.
Why Is Legal Advice Regarding Commercial Contracts Important?
Commercial contracts are vital for every business. A commercial contract records the terms on which commercial parties will do business. For example, by detailing the products or services you will provide, the timeframes for delivery, and the payment terms. Without well-defined commercial contracts, significant problems, such as misaligned expectations and contractual ambiguity, can arise. Such problems can lead to customer complaints and, in the worst case, legal disputes.
It is essential to take legal advice on your commercial contracts if you need support with them. Working with experienced lawyers can help you understand the critical legal issues relevant to your contracts and the risks your business is exposed to.
Lawyers can help prepare contracts to mitigate potential risks and provide you with confidence when trading. We will now explore some benefits below.
1. A Commercial Contracts Lawyer Can Tell You Which Contracts You Need
There are several different types of commercial agreements. For example – supply contracts, franchise agreements, manufacturing agreements and software licence agreements. Those contracts can also take several different forms – for example, short or longer-form agreements. They could be full length contracts for customers to sign, or terms and conditions attached to an Order Form or Scope Of Work document.
Legal and Commercial Factors to Consider
You must carefully consider different legal and commercial factors, including:
- Do you have the correct type of agreement, and is it fit for purpose? Does your agreement include the correct legal provisions to protect your business?
- Is your agreement fair and balanced? If your agreement contains extremely onerous terms, could this dissuade customers from working with you?
- Is your agreement tailored and bespoke enough to reflect your products or services accurately? A generic agreement could lead to risks, including misunderstandings.
- Does your agreement need to contain any mandatory legal terms required by law, such as data processing clauses required under the GDPR?
These are all key factors that an experienced commercial contracts lawyer can guide you on. A commercial contracts lawyer will advise you on which types of contracts you need and make best practice suggestions around how they should draft.
Download this free Supplier Contracts Checklist to ensure your contracts will meet your business’ needs.
For instance, a lawyer may have strong industry knowledge of which contract terms are common in your sector and what would be reasonable for customers to accept. This can add considerable value, particularly if your business is starting out or launching a new product or service.
Continue reading this article below the form2. Commercial Contracts Lawyers Can Protect You from Contractual Risks
Several contractual risks can arise at any stage during your business journey.
For example:
- you could fail to deliver a big order to a customer due to unexpected events, e.g. a huge storm, which means your delivery team could not dispatch the order;
- a team member could accidentally cause a significant personal data breach by leaving their device with sensitive customer information on a train; or
- your biggest customer could stop paying invoices on time, severely impacting your business’s cash flow.
By working with an experienced commercial contracts lawyer, you can identify and foresee risks to help ‘future-proof’ your business. For example, your lawyer can help draft robust terms that protect you in the circumstances above. For instance, your terms could limit your liability to the customer, reducing the damages you may be required to pay if you breach your obligations. This could significantly benefit your business under challenging circumstances when things do not go as smoothly as planned in your business contracts.
3. Commercial Contracts Lawyers Can Help You Successfully Negotiate Deals
Savvy business customers will often seek to negotiate contracts, particularly where you, as a supplier, are trading on your own standard terms and conditions. Understandably, you may want to get new deals over the line without worrying about legal requests. Or you may struggle to understand the implications of the negotiated terms that your customers request. This is where a specialist commercial lawyer can add significant value.
A lawyer can help with negotiations in several ways, including:
- reviewing negotiated terms or contracts requested by your customers and advising you on them;
- flagging to you any high-risk issues and requests you should not agree you;
- helping you understand whether negotiated terms are reasonable or not;
- negotiating terms on your behalf, therefore taking some of the pressure away from you; and
- helping you reach successful agreements by working with your customers’ lawyers to reach mutually acceptable resolutions for both parties.
Commercial contracts lawyers are often highly experienced in negotiation and understand their clients’ businesses and the risks they may accept. By working with professional lawyers, you can help address your customers’ concerns more quickly and comprehensively. You will also be comfortable knowing that your lawyer will represent your best interests in negotiations and that you fully understand your negotiated contracts and the risks to watch out for.
In summary, there are several ways in which working with a specialist commercial contracts lawyer can benefit your business, protect you from risk and help you negotiate new deals successfully.
Key Takeaways
Commercial contracts are essential for every business. However, commercial agreements do not follow a one-size-fits-all approach. Your business should invest in well-defined contracts that are fit for purpose and tailored to reflect your business activities. Working with an experienced, specialist commercial contracts lawyer can help your business in many ways.
For example, you can have confidence that your contracts are fit for purpose and protect your business from the risks it may face when trading. Your lawyer can also support you with negotiations, helping you smoothly conclude new contracts and win new business.
If you need help with a commercial contract, LegalVision’s experienced contract lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents. Call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.
Frequently Asked Questions
They draft, review, and negotiate contracts to ensure your business is protected from risks.
A lawyer helps minimise legal risks and ensures your contracts are clear, fair, and beneficial for your business.
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