In today’s complex business world, every company will eventually find itself dealing with contracts. Contracts can take a variety of forms. Some may be verbal and others written, but all are designed to be legally binding. Unintentional mistakes made in their wording can lead to serious trouble.
In many respects, expert contract creation is an art form. Macchi Law Group can help you sidestep costly and potentially catastrophic errors by carefully crafting the proper terminology to suit your specialized business needs.
Contract Drafting
If properly drawn, a contract will legally obligate all interested parties to perform certain tasks or duties, or to behave in specific ways. Therefore, it is vital to ensure that a contract meets all legal requirements. Despite the presumed validity of verbal agreements, it is always best to put your business contracts in writing, even in situations that might otherwise seem inconsequential to require this level of formality.
If any of the parties to a contract should fail to meet the contract’s specific terms, a court order could force the defaulting party to hold up its end of the bargain or to pay expectation, compensatory, punitive, and/or liquidated damages.
Types of Business Contracts
Despite their obvious internal disparities, business contracts will typically fall into one of four categories. These are:
- Leases. These can involve the renting of real or commercial property, equipment, buildings, land and the like.
- Sales Contracts. Used most often in relation to such items as boats and cars, this type of contract will legally transfer a property’s title and may include a warranty or security agreement.
- Employment contracts. Documents like these will set the terms of your workers’ employment, separation, confidentiality, consulting, and noncompetition arrangements.
- General contracts. Partnership agreements, operating agreements, shareholders agreements, franchise operations, and joint-venture enterprises fall into this category.
Although it is always possible to draft a contract on your own, an attorney can provide invaluable assistance to help you avoid any pitfalls and omissions. Through careful scrutiny of your document, the lawyers at Macchi Law Group will identify and flag potential problems before they escalate.
Contract Interpretation
In a perfect world, all contracts would be legally binding. In truth, any number of errors could prevent their enforcement. Common problems regarding enforcement may concern:
- Lack of Capacity. All parties to any legal agreement must fully understand the contract’s terms. If, at the time of signing, one or more of the parties should prove to be a minor, or in some way mentally incompetent, the contract may be unenforceable.
- Unconscionability. No contract is legally binding if adherence to its terms would lead to a shocking or unreasonable outcome, or oppress one or more of the parties in some way.
- Misrepresentation, Duress, or Undue influence. All parties to a legal contract must willingly assent to the contract terms and must be well informed of those terms. If one or more of the parties should later prove to have signed to the contract terms under coercive pressure or in response to a false representation of the contract’s terms, the document itself may prove to be invalid and unenforceable.
- Mistake. When a contract’s terms are ambiguous or encourage false expectations, the courts may decline to enforce it.
In addition, any contract that is illegal on its face or contrary to public policy will rarely hold up in a court of law. This is particularly true if the contract’s terms require one or more of its participants to engage in illegitimate or questionable activities.
Contract Counseling
The contract law specialists at Macchi Law Group understand the difficulty of drawing up a legally binding agreement. Our contract counseling services exist to help you draft a proper contract, review an existing contract, or litigate a contract with ambiguous or unreasonable terms placing you in hot water. With the help of Macchi Law Group, what was once arcane and complex will become clear and simple. Call Macchi Law Group today and let us take the necessary steps to put your mind at ease.