Actually, I'm looking more for oil paintings. Thanks though.

Yes, although I know nothing of Illinois law. I regularly draw up contracts under English law, if that's any help at all.

If I ever need a contract looked over in England, I'll let you know.

LOL

I can guarantee what you've done is all good, right up to the point when there is a dispute, then you can pay someone a small aeroplane per hour to sort it out.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but solid contract or no, I still don't think it will be legal to sell your ass in Illinois.

Biblically speaking as long as it doesn't happen between neighbours it's perfectly acceptable. In some denominations it's practically encouraged.

Free sharing of Bo's ass is encouraged. It's the profitting that's illegal.

But if you film it, it's not prostitution anymore. Then it's just porn and that's cool.

Wellllll the....well played, my Gaping Friend.

Huh....that's the title of your first feature, isn't it?

What a fucking sad irony that is, thought...ridiculous laws in this country.

When you realize you live in the same state as Bo Sox....

It's more an argument for legalizing prostitution than anything.

You will probably need a lawyer since court decisions can over ride terms in a contract. Just ask any company that had a mandatory arbitration clause for disputes.

Yes, you need a lawyer. I am one and I wouldn't touch this sort of thing without a review. if the value of the contract is high enough, the lawyer is just an insurance policy so you don't get screwed. No reason it has to cost a lot. There are plenty of small business lawyers out there who don't charge absurd amounts. As Maniac said, you won't need a lawyer until there's a dispute, and if you haven't checked the terms with someone who understands these things, by then it will be expensive and too late.

(And no, I'm not a member of the Illinois bar, nor do I do contract law, but I know enough to know you need a decent lawyer.)

I'm not sure why Bo would want a contract to protect his "company" anyway. what a useless hateful twat. after all, BO didn't create that company. SOCIETY created that company, because without the infrastructure that we all put in place, the education we all gave to Bo, the tangible and intangibles that we all contributed to make Bo and his company what it is today (or will be...) there would be no company.

So FUCK BO and his greedy ass capitialistic ways trying to protect his precious selfish greedy company. Fuck you. Why don't you want to share the welath with anyone who comes along?

Damned fucking hypocrite.

A lawyer can get sued just as easily for work they did for free. Arguably easier because of the presumption that, "You didn't really pay attention or care because you weren't getting paid, right?"

I'm pretty sure that paying an attorney $300 for an hour of their time will be better than paying them in the 5 figures when a dispute arises.

And Ogion is a lawyer....recommending you ABSOLUTELY MUST TOTALLY AND FOREVER need a lawyer....

Yeeeeah....no bias there...

FUCK lawyers. You can't trust a damned thing they say, because we all know that lawyers hate everyone and are ONLY out to enrich themselves, the worthless capitalistic pigs. We all know few people "need" laywers, and if everyone would just stop using lawyers the world would be at perfect peace and harmony because, come on....CO-EXIST....am I right? the only reason there are ever lawsuits is because of the lawyers to begin with, and if there were no lawyers telling people to sue then clearly nobody would ever disagree in the first place and there would be global peace and harmony and capitalism would fade away and all would be equally and wonderfully sharing of all things and happiness peace and unicorn farts would decorate the world.

That.

@Super ... I don't plan on a dispute arising. Obviously, nobody does. However, given that I have invested what small amount of money I have in what I have already done, I don't have $300 an hour to give. I have $300 a week to spend on myself so I can eat and maybe have a night out once in awhile. I don't even care if someone stamps their name on this as my lawyer or not; I just want someone who isn't me to look it over for any basic things I might have missed - advisement, so to speak.

@krellin ... you are 100% right. I'm a hypocrite and lawyers suck. Two truths for sure.

No one expects a dispute arising. Or the Spanish Inquisition.

Yes, as I said. My point is that I'm not looking to protect my company against a dispute. I'm just looking to make sure we get paid.

If you don't expect a dispute then why have a contract? If you think everything will go swimmingly you wouldn't need one.

Look if you want to make sure you get paid hire a lawyer to make sure it'll do what you want it to. Don't go complaining if you try to do it yourself and get hosed. I am always amazed how many people think they can do lawyering with zero training and what a ridiculous has they make of it.

" I'm just looking to make sure we get paid."

That's what lots of small business thought they would get when they did work for various Trump companies only to find that payment was withheld because the work wasn't up to his standards. Spell out exactly what they want and when you get paid.

It took me a really long time to realize this wasn't a steephie parody thread...

I work with contracts daily. I don't know how complex this one is but unless it is a very simple (raking your dad's yard for $50) contract you 100% need a lawyer to minimize risk. On the other hand if you are willing to take the risk of not getting paid or a dispute or can't afford a lawyer.....

@abge: Thanks for introducing me.

@bo: I feel you. You're probably aware that you can't spend nothing and guarantee payment, but for now you just want to make sure that you phrased everything correctly and whether more specifications are generally needed etc. Just if the contract is sensible and valid.

In your situation, I'd say make it as good as possible without spending money. The intent will be clear and suing is much less appealing for anyone.
I wouldn't worry about being 100% covered. You can have perfect terms but still lose a lawsuit if you can't afford a lawyer.

Focus on preventing lawsuits, not on winning them.

That said, I have no clue about the specifics of this and I'm a newb in this stuff too. But it sounds like you can't afford a safer strategy.

If you're willing, send me a PM with what this is actually about. For instance, if preferred, I might be able to get you investments so you can do it properly.

Otherwise, in my experience there's no harm in letting Jamie look over it so you should at least take that offer. Just keep in mind that in the best case, he can say 'looks solid'. He doesn't know your laws to heart so he can offer no guarantees, but it would still be a waste to not see what he thinks.

Please send me that PM. I'm very curious and chances are we can help eachother at one point or another.

@Krellin: "BO didn't create that company. SOCIETY created that company, because without the infrastructure that we all put in place, the education we all gave to Bo, the tangible and intangibles that we all contributed to make Bo and his company what it is today (or will be...) there would be no company."

Um, Krellin, when did you become a socialist?

Surely I don't need to point out that krellin is mocking 'socialist' bo?

Jamie I'm expressing Bo's ideology. I'm concerned that Bo is leading a life of reading hypocrisy ( as most WebDip socialists do) and I wanted to point out the slippery slope of self-loathing he is sliding down. But I shall enjoy mixing him, both in his endeavors to be a hypocrite capitalist, and when he fails.

Mocking him, not mixing him.

Okay, I could accept the left-wing rhetoric as parody, but the krellin I know doesn't correct his spelling mistakes. Who are you, and what have you done with the real krellin?

In this case it actually needed clarification.

I pay my employees $20 an hour. What a commie.

Holy shit, what sort of business is it?

If you can't afford a lawyer, that is very understandable. Don't forego a contract because you can't afford a lawyer. If the choice is no contract or contract without a lawyer, write up a contract and do your best to explicitly say what is expected from every person, what every person expects and include the amounts, whens, wheres and whos.

In most cases, what is written in the contract controls. There are lots of exceptions but, generally speaking, the person arguing to enforce a contract as written is in a better position than the one arguing to avoid enforcement.

In your agreement be as clear and precise as you can be.

As a side note, I find it fascinating that the guy begging for free legal work would say "Lawyers suck." I wouldn't go into a restaurant, ask for free food and then say "Cooks suck".

It was sarcasm. Krellin sucks.

I have a contract written up. I'm just looking for some advice on it. I am gonna look over it myself a few more times too.

@Prado ... estate cleanouts.

@bosox...gee whiz, you do realise that by paying well and treating your employees decently the majority of them will return such treatment with good productivity and loyalty ? Also, when those unexpected events come along they'll probably be happy to help by working extra hours to get a delivery out, come up with solutions to solve problems. Customers are also usually quick to pick up on whether your employees are "happy workers" with the consequences that brings.

Cannot imagine how you hope to be successful in business with such an approach.. Ha ha ha....seriously.. Good on you..decently paid workers make good customers for a whole range of other businesses as well as possibly your own business

@bosox...is there someone with good business experience that you trust who is independent from your business and the other party or parties to the contract whom you know, you might consider asking them for their opinion, or asking them to have a look at the contract.
Who wrote the contract ? If the other party/parties wrote the contract then I'd reccomend you get independent advice. If not from a lawyer, then from someone with good business experience.

Again, I would take Jamie's offer to begin with. It's arguably not enough, but there's no harm in it.

Major mitchell, from what I can tell $20/hour is pretty competitive in Illinois. As a lawyer I don't get paid a whole lot more than that, I can tell you, but then I haven't been a happy worker and the organization I worked for couldn't give a shit. Actually, no, they do. If you're happy working for them, they set out to change that.

@MM ... I wrote it.

$20 an hour is considerably higher than hourly rates in this field but a lot of workers are paid a flat rate per job. We said $20 an hour because we employ other college kids part time and don't give the consistent hours that another employer would (i.e. they don't work when we don't have cleanouts to do), so we hope that that compensates for some 20 hour weeks and some 0 hour weeks, because we have both.

Well I made the comment about the hourly rate without knowing what type of work it was, I could have flippantly said that's very good for your average dentist or neuro surgeon.
Having "happy" employees depends on more than pay rates, but if the workers in an organisation feel they are under paid then it's really difficult to get them "happy", so pay rates are a critical factor.. but if other conditions are causing problems, then you can have a situation where they're thinking no amount of extra cash will make any significant difference
Ogipns comments are a really good example of how an employer is seen by a disgruntled employee, Ogion sees them as being worse than just indifferent to his interests, he attributes a malicious, vindictive quality to their behavior, remuneration doesn't appear to be the source of his dissatisfaction.
Customers can pick up on that, and if there's strong competition, or difficult economic circumstances that can really hurt the bottom line, especially if there's a strong service component to sales revenue.
Customers can be the best, or worst " free advertising" for a lot of businesses, and with the obvious qualifying condition that it can be dependant upon what the business is / does, I believe that Customers who believe they got excellent services / products will become repeat customers, and "sell" your business to friends and acquaintances, in both their private and professional relationships..and vice versa

Customers will likely never deal with my employees, only myself and my friend and co-owner. I pay them well enough to maybe make a decent dent in their student loans as well as possibly, oh, I don't know, eat, because I'm a decent human being.

Be aware that if you wrote the contract any ambiguity will likely be interpreted against you.

Wait, what kind of contacts are we talking about? Because I just heard of a great way to recover your Android contacts. Could have sworn I heard of it on this forum, too.
Can't recall how...