Expand Your Company's Horizons By Using Consultants In Addition To Employees

The very term consultant has different meanings when applied to different spheres

of activity that may span a wide array of services as well as different providers. It thus becomes necessary to put into writing a consulting agreement that will define the relationship between the consultant and the client. This means defining the terms and nature of the consulting agreement and all other specific points that the agreement shall hold and there are a number of provisions that a consulting agreement should contain. These are definition of services, payment schedules, contingent payments, and obligations of the consultant, ownership of the work product and termination provisions.

Defining the definition of services often proves to be the hardest because very often the services are of a general nature but they must nevertheless be defined in as much detail as possible. Omitting to define the services to be rendered will prove costly as there won't be any yardstick to judge whether the consultant has indeed provided the services or not and met with all of their obligations. It needs to be specified whether the services are exclusive or non-exclusive and in case of exclusive services, what would be the duration and in what territory or market would they be valid?

The payment schedule means that the payment is connected with a deliverable and needs to be defined in the consulting agreement. Contingent payments are payments that are made subject to some contingency, which in turn, defines how much is to be paid to the consultant. If not specified in the consulting agreement, the consultant would be put in a dangerous position because there would not be present any concrete and well-mannered description of the contingencies applicable. In addition, these contingencies often depend on the concept of profit or incomes, which need to be documented.

The obligations of the consultant should define what the consultant is meant to do, which may be in addition to the above-mentioned points. This is especially salient when the consultant may be providing similar services to competitive companies. This issue needs to be defined in the consulting agreement.

The ownership of the work product is necessary, given the fact that the consultant must be having a vast repository of knowledge accumulated over the years and for which he may claim proprietary rights. This necessitates that the scope of each party's claims should have been specified in detail in the consulting agreement. It would enable the consultant to claim proprietary rights over the complete body of his work and materials provided by him in relation to performing his duties towards the client. It should spell out which party owns the work product and what can the party do and not do with regard to those rights of ownership.

Termination provisions come into play because very often, the contract does not run its full course and disputes arise and so some definition regarding the termination of the contract needs to be made, that may be acted upon in case of breach of contracts.

Needless to say, the consulting agreement is a very important document that needs to be addressed in all seriousness. One good alternative to drafting an agreement from scratch is to purchase the pre-defined consulting agreement that is available on the market and which costs little, while at the same time provides the complete functionality of a well legal document. There is a lot to save in terms of time, money and effort and it can be also easily tailored to meet individual needs. There is really no need to reinvent the wheel and it is better to make use of the expertise of professionals who devote all their time and effort to drafting these documents for the general customer needs than to make one from scratch.

by: Wade Anderson

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