Spent 3 weeks on a contract clause that took 2 hours to fix

Drafted a 12 page service agreement for a recurring maintenance deal and got stuck on the termination terms, kept going back and forth with myself. Then a buddy in the same trade sent me a template from his lawyer and I swapped the whole section in an afternoon. Anyone else burn way too long reinventing standard boilerplate?

2 comments

2 Comments

rowanp1516d ago

Oh man, that hits home hard. I once spent a whole weekend arguing with a client over a stupid "force majeure" line in their renewal terms, and we went around in circles for days. Then my cousin, who does construction law, just sent me his standard version and I swapped it out in ten minutes flat. The client didn't even blink, they just signed off on it like it was nothing. I still get a little annoyed thinking about all those hours I lost just because I wanted to sound clever with my own wording. These days I hoard good templates like they're gold, and honestly, it's the only reason I sleep at night.

tessawebb16d ago

Used to treat every contract like a personal challenge, but after one bad renewal almost cost me a client, I grabbed every decent template I could find. Now it's just smart business, not lazy shortcuts.