Business Contracts
While contracts need not be in writing, a written contract is by far the best approach to protecting your interests. We work with you to draft contracts that will protect you in the event a dispute arises. Sometimes through no-fault of either party, performance of a contract is not possible because of unplanned events or delays. Other times, a party may decide that it is in that party’s best interest not to provide the goods or services that are a basis of the contract. Lex Concordia works with you to draft contracts that account for both the expected and the unexpected. We also review contracts before you sign them to make sure that the contract fully reflects what you believe is in the agreement and that a court would recognize what you intended if a dispute were to arise. While we believe that when it comes to contracts an ounce of prevention is worth at least a pound of cure, we recognize that not all disputes can be avoided, so we also defend and prosecute cases where there is a contract breach.
We structure, negotiate, and implement the full range of strategic collaborations from acquisition of specified assets and licensing to joint ventures and other partnering arrangements -- from early discovery and research to late-stage and commercial deals. We always work to fully understand you and your business needs, so that we can customize our agreements.
When drafting sales and service contracts, we first work to completely understand your business and the business transaction that the contract will cover. This knowledge enables us to prepare an agreement that accurately describes the scope of services to be provided and the agreed obligations and rights of the parties. We specifically work with you to determine what warranty, indemnity, and liability provisions would best fit your needs. We also work to make sure that you are protected if a dispute were to arise, so that you would be able to recover your entire costs of litigation or arbitration in enforcing the agreement.
We negotiate, draft, and enforce supply and procurement contracts. We work to make sure that your contracts for procured goods, services or works are appropriate to your business, and that your contracts are negotiated in a manner that provides the best possible cost to meet your needs in terms of quality, quantity, time, and location. Our skill in contract drafting often allows for you to negotiate terms that you did not understand or were not aware of for terms that have an effect on your bottom line. If a dispute arises with your supply and procurement contracts, we will defend and prosecute such cases when the dispute cannot be solved out of court or arbitration.
We will negotiate, draft, and review your commercial lease agreements in a way that specifically meets your business’ needs. When it comes to commercial leases, the small print is very important, so we will help you review your agreements to understand exactly what you are signing. When negotiating and drafting commercial leases we will work with you to formulate a strategy that is customized to your business needs. For example, it may be important for you to not be next door to your main competitor, or it may be important for you to be able to expand and lease additional space from your landlord if you are in a high growth stage. At Lex Concordia, we present you with the potential clauses that can be added to your lease and negotiate to get you the clauses that are important to you.
We work with you not only to draft your employment contracts, but we also work to implement the best strategies and procedures for adding people to your business. We review your hiring advertisements, interviewing techniques, and pre-employment tests to make sure they are in compliance with your legal obligations. We will also make sure that you are in compliance with everything from federal immigration law to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and that your procedures are sound for everything from payroll withholding to preventing sexual harassment. Finally, we make sure to draft employment contracts that do everything from outlining the procedures for terminating employees to preventing former employees from using your trade secrets.
With the growing importance of doing business online, the legal obligations you and your business face expand as well. We recommend that our clients add at least basic terms and conditions to their websites that govern the use of their online presence. However, if your website goes beyond informational content and attempts to sell anything – be that services, goods or licenses- it must also include terms and conditions governing the sale. At Lex Concordia, we assist you with highly customized documents that are tailored to your way of doing business and meet the requirements of the current consumer protection laws. If needed, we will also advise you about your obligations under data protection legislation and help you draft a website privacy policy that covers all of your online data collection activities.
