Hey Marc! Good to "see" you again. There's a sad old saying in business that you know you've "made it" in business when someone sues you. There's something to that unfortunately, that if you are in business long enough, chances are you'll be on one side or the other of legal action. It happens. You misjudge a client, maybe they have some personal issues that bleed into a business, maybe there is a market downturn and they make some question choices. Things happen. Point being, the posters in this thread recommending the use of lawyers and accountants to protect your interests are spot on imho.
Hello Jeff! (Have we met? Apologies if I'm forgetting something...)
I see what you mean, but given the context I wonder if there might be some projection at work here, since your experience with law is so deep--so tell me what you think of this clarification: I could also recommend lawyers and accountants; however not so much with the current discussion context in mind--that being the case of a beginning freelancer working in tech. For such an individual, getting sued is typically way out of the immediate area of concern and almost certainly game over, at least in energy expenditure if not financially.
Case in point, one meeting with a business attorney and the time he spent drawing up only a contract _for working together_ resulted in one of my business partners receiving a bill of almost $3K. He told me, "I'm so glad I never bothered retaining an attorney until it was absolutely necessary."
To a brand new freelancer, building a professional team is often an anticipated risk, but it's still a risk; they are often slow to move in that direction while building capital and reputation. I think rightly so in many cases.
Given your business though--you've clearly "made it"--congratulations and I wish you all the best with all the trimmings, etc. ;-)
Marc - I'm nearly certain we went through public school together. We might have even had a previous chat in another thread about year ago.
My thinking is that too often freelancers think "I'm just a freelancer" rather than "I run a business" and it is important to make the mental leap because of the key word you said above - risk. We need contracts because they give all parties clear expectations of what is expected to happen, but also what will transpire in the event things don't go the way we expect. Without a well-written legal contract in place, both parties are at the mercy of each other acting in good faith, and unfortunately that's not always how things actually go. As a freelancer too, we often have a lot of personal skin in the game, which to my mind makes it even more imperative to have professional advice from accountants and lawyers, because we have more to lose personally. On the accounting front, I see a lot of people who make mistakes that cost themselves a lot of money because they didn't spend the relatively modest amount to get good professional advice. As another commenter stated in this same thread, the amount accountants save you pays for their cost.
Run of the mill lawyers generally bill between $200-$300/hour, so $3K might work out to ten hours of work. For many freelancers with basic needs, resources like Nolo or your local SBA office might be more affordable and get to the same goal - we're still getting professional advice, just in a different form.
