My dad was a small town lawyer for probably 50 years.

My dad was a small town lawyer for probably 50 years.

He wrote our first services contract. When we got a little bigger I thought it best we start using a local law firm with a bunch of fancy lawyers on staff. When I called my dad to “fire” him, I asked if he had any thoughts on what should be in the next services contract. His answer was something like, “they’re going to offer you a 3-page contract or a 12-page contract. Take the 12-page contract. You can always edit parts out you don’t use.”

I’ll be damned if he wasn’t right. We got a mail merged 12-page contract that was, more or less, an ad for the yet to be formed LegalZoom.

What I found interesting was the contract only got useful and better when we started working with companies who actually read the contract and had edits to it.

I think there is a thought that contract negations are always adversarial. That was very rarely the case for me. Most of the times I got edits to our mail merged contract it helped to clarify something for both parties. It was worth the time and helped me as much as it helped the client.