Dropped $250 on a contract lawyer in Toledo and it saved me a $3,200 headache | Bargaining Board - Freelance Forum - The Community for Independent Professionals
Dropped $250 on a contract lawyer in Toledo and it saved me a $3,200 headache
So last month I had a job lined up where the guy wanted to haggle on the deposit and kept pushing payment out to 45 days after the work. My gut said run but the money was good, so I paid a lawyer $250 to look over his contract before I signed. She found a clause where he could hold back 20 percent for "quality issues" with no end date, which on a $3,200 job meant he could sit on $640 forever if he felt like it. We redlined that whole section and swapped in 15 days after completion, no wiggle room. He grumbled but signed, and then funny enough he paid on day 12 without me saying a word. Before this I thought a lawyer was only for the big dogs, but $250 to kill one bad clause felt like the best money I spent all year. Now I'm wondering if I should have her do a template I can reuse on smaller jobs, has anybody gone that route and did it actually hold up when a customer pushed back?