Are you wondering how to prevent a business contract dispute? The Watkins Firm has decades of experience drafting enforceable business contracts designed to move the parties smoothly through any transaction or relationship. It may seem obvious, but most contract related disputes are due to vague terms and unforeseen circumstances. The more vague contract terms become, the more room there is for disagreement and dispute or breach of contract between the parties.
Many new business owners attempt to download contracts from a forms website or copy existing contracts from the internet or a previous work experience. The issue with most downloaded forms is they do not adequately cover the unique variations of California laws and regulatory compliance requirements, let alone the unique aspects of any business iteself. These “boilerplate” contracts are loosely written to form an outline. Without the guidance and carefully crafted clauses and legal phrases provided by the Watkins Firm, these boilerplate contracts fail to hold up when a dispute breaks out.
If you want to know how to prevent a business contract dispute, begin with the contract itself. The business attorneys at the Watkins Firm have developed our own proprietary library of proven business contracts. We don’t write contracts from scratch. It would take too much time and money. Instead, we take a proven, successful contract that has worked in many similar situations in the past, and custom tailor it to your unique needs and applications. You get a tested, proven business contract custom-tailored to your unique needs for roughly the same cost as a downloaded “form” contract.
In addition, it is important to note, the benefit of the doubt in any contract dispute goes against the party who provided the contract. Your business deserves strong, proven contracts with an experienced law firm standing behind them.
California contract law limits the focus to the “four corners of the contract.” In other words, what is written in the document itself. If any dispute arises, it is left to a judge, mediator or arbitrator to attempt to discern the original intent of the parties, the “benefit of the bargain” each intended and the understandings of each party at the outset. Untangling these legal knots is quite time consuming and expensive.
The Watkins Firm knows how to prevent a business contract dispute – through an effective, well-crafted and proven contract. The fact is disputes over a business contract are preventable for a modest cost, especially if the agreement can be used again and again. Our seasoned contract attorneys ensure that the contract captures the entire agreement between the parties and clearly establishes the role of each participant. Our well crafted agreements anticipate almost all of the potential issues that could arise during the course of the transaction or underlying relationship and how these bumps in the road are to be handled.
Pro-Tip: ‘The purpose of a contract is for two or more people (or entities) to have a meeting of the minds and agree specifically on what they are, or are not going to do for each other. The benefit of the bargain is required for a contract because a contract without any exchange or any value is not a contract. So to have a contract, you have to have an offer, an acceptance and something of value. So that’s what the benefit of the bargain is. That’s what makes it a contract.
A business contract basically serves as a roadmap. What we do in drafting contracts is the same thing you would do or would say, “I will give you this for that,” but contracts get more complicated. So as lawyers, we get trained in creating these what if checklists in these contracts. We might provide our clients with a checklist of, say, 50 terms. And we assume that you’re gonna want some of these, or both parties will want one or more of the checklist items in there. And also we’ll ask our clients questions about all these, what ifs. Then, we provide a custom-tailored contract from our proven, proprietary library of business contracts to meet all of these needs in a cost-efficient manner.’ – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner
An effective business contract reduces vague terms, and establishes a clear path in the event one of the parties fails to uphold the terms of the contract. This is how to prevent a business contract dispute. If you are interested in smooth business operations, relationships and transactions we invite you to review our podcast Episode 3 – Corporate Documents and Contracts as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.