Today’s lesson for me 😉
I receive a contract that I need to sign. I reviewed it, asked for some changes which both parties agreed to and then I am asked to make the changes.
Sure, no problem – but wait its a protected pdf. Now do I be clever and extract to Word or just ask for the Word version?
So, I ask for the Word Version – which they don’t have.
So a couple of conversations later – the suggestion is that I sign the existing contract as is and they will just attach the email I sent with the suggested changes to it … and all sorted …. mmmm … no its not.
What’s the risk with this idea? Well, the contract will have no changes or reference to the amendments / annex – so pretty much you can tear it up and use the existing contract as is.
There is probably a few learnings in this, I will stop at 5!
1. Becareful who you let run your negotiations and contracting.
2. Make sure that who does represent your firm for this, has been taught the basics of contracting to avoid this simple pitfall above.
3. Dont loose control of the wording. If its your agreement, take the lead in making the changes – don’t let the other party do this but rather hear their concerns and write up proposed amendments.
4. Don’t loose control of the tracking. Always, always keep the original and tracked changes source on your computer and start from their again. So if you receive the contract back with tracked changes, do start to use that document – but go back to your original document and include those changes in their. Why? To prevent loosing other changes or new changes slipping through.
5. When working on legal agreements or in fact anything, don’t leave your common sense at the door. You don’t have to have a legal qualification to realise the suggested solution above would be a problem.