There are three situations in which you need a contract for your business.If any of them apply to you, then yes, it's time for a legal contract.

Situation 1:You are running a business and want your clients to treat you like a business owner.Contracts are not used to intimidate clients or create an extra hurdle in your business process. Contracts are used as a tool to both protect your business and build trust with your clients. Lawyer written contracts provide all the necessary information to create a legal agreement between your business and customers.

Situation 2:You need to get paid for your services.If any exchange of goods and services results in a bill, you need a contract. If you’re providing services or products for free or as a gift, then a contract wouldn’t be necessary. If you’re trading services, we’d still recommend a contract to protect both parties and to ensure that everyone “pays up.”

Situation 3:You need to cover your butt.What's more expensive than a contract template? A business lawsuit. Even if it's only in small claims court — or has no merit — you still have to deal with it. In other words: a legal battle will still cost you hundreds of dollars at best. Each of our templates are created to minimize the risks to you and your business and reduce the amount of money you could be on the hook for if a client decides to file a business lawsuit. Using a legal template to make and implement your contracts is a much cheaper option and will help protect your business.

We get this question so often that we wrote a blog post about it!

The short answer is, no, we are not a law firm. We simply provide lawyer-drafted-and-reviewed templates. Law firms provide custom legal advice, legal documents, and solutions based on your business problems and questions at hand. 

All of our templates and legal documents are drafted by Christina Scalera, a licensed lawyer. Our legal documents are also peer-reviewed by at least two licensed attorneys—one based in the US and one based in the country the template will be used in [for example, for all of our Canadian entrepreneurs, we have a Canadian lawyer review those contracts]. 

These contract agreement templates are now in use by over 5,000 creatives. That’s a lot of feedback we’ve been able to process and use to improve our contracts to meet a variety of business needs!

In short, yes. But we know that may not be enough to earn your trust when using our legal contracts online, so here’s the longer answer:

When you buy a service agreement template from The Contract Shop®, you get:

• A peer-reviewed contract drafted by Christina Scalera, a licensed attorney. These contracts have also been reviewed by several lawyers, which means you're getting the expertise of a handful of attorneys at only a fraction of their hourly rates.
• Peace of mind knowing that your contract was written for your industry by someone who understands your business. You’ll also get the same contract that hundreds of other pros in your industry have used to protect their business [and the contracts worked for them].
• Solid protection in plain English. We skip the legalese, so you can earn your clients’ trust with a contract they can understand. You also get access to resources that help you customize your contracts to your unique business needs in minutes.
• Regular updates. We don’t believe in making you pay again for contracts you already purchased — and we definitely don’t believe in sticking you with a template that doesn’t protect you.

Our contract templates have also been trusted by HoneyBook®, Danielle LaPorte, and Ramit Sethi’s Growth Lab. 

We’re customers of online businesses too, so we’ve made a refund policy that’s simple and easy to understand. For all contracts and products sold by The Contract Shop®:

Our no-hassle, 14-day happiness policy means that if you are not satisfied, for any reason, we’ll work with you to make sure you’re happy, even if that means a full refund. You can submit a refund request here.

Getting your contract template reviewed by an attorney in your area is a good idea, but starting with one of our agreement templates will save you a ton of money. After all, having a very well-drafted, peer-reviewed, used-by-many contract is better than nothing.

Learn more about the validity of our contracts state-by-state. 

Yes! Our contracts are not dependent on local laws and are applicable no matter where your clients are in the world. Our philosophy is that we want to capture the spirit and mutual understanding of the relationship between the service provider and client in an easy-to-understand, accessible way.

Therefore, we have international versions of select contract templates for convenience, but not out of necessity. Our Hold My Hand™ guide will walk you through how to adjust the contracts for international use.

Email our support team, message us on Facebook, or hit the ‘What's your question?’ button in the lower right-hand corner of your screen.

While you wait, check out our extensive Knowledge Base and FAQ page, they're filled with great information about our contracts, legal support, and more!