Legally Easy

From time to time, everyone needs or provides services for pay. Services are the fastest growing part of our economy and it is important that you properly document services to be provided or purchased to avoid headaches down the road. Keep reading and we'll discuss some easy and affordable documents that you can use to put service relationships in writing. All of the documents discussed in this article can be easily created, saved and edited at RocketLawyer.com.

Service contracts document the terms of the sale of services. Everyday services from childcare to business consulting, special services like wedding photography and countless other situations can be documented with standard contracts. This article describes some of the common service contracts that you might need for both personal and business purposes.

In general, the basic elements of a contract to purchase services are:

1. Identification of the parties.
2. A description of the services to be performed.
3. The dates or scheduled dates for performance of the services.
4. Any conditions or limitations placed on either of the parties or warranties related to the performance of services.
5. Payment terms.

Work for Hire Agreements
Hiring a nanny for childcare or a contractor to do some work on a house? In that case, you probably can use a Work for Hire Agreement. A Work for Hire Agreement is a document under which a "Service Provider" contracts to provide services for an individual or organization (the "Hiring Party"). Under this agreement, the Service Provider is an independent contractor, and not an employee, of the Hiring Party. This Agreement should not be used if the Service Provider is really an employee of the Hiring Party. In many respects, the Work for Hire Agreement is simply a short-form version of a Consulting Agreement.

Consulting Agreements
Hiring a consultant to work in your business, or department? Consider documenting this independent contractor relationship with a Consulting Agreement. A Consulting Agreement is a document under which a consultant (someone who gives expert or professional advice or services) agrees to provide professional or consulting services. Under this agreement, the "consultant" is an independent contractor with respect to the "Hiring Party and not an employee of the Hiring Party. At RocketLawyer.com, this document allows the user to substitute any term for the term "consultant," and thus, this document can be adapted to many other situations that might involve an independent contractor.

General Service Contracts
A General Contract for Services documents the terms of the sale of services by one company (the "Service Provider") to another company or an individual (the "Service Recipient"). This document should not be used if the Service Provider is an individual. The Work for Hire, Consulting Agreement, or Subcontractor Agreement documents, available at RocketLawyer.com, can be used for that purpose. This document only deals with services purchased from a business, and therefore, does not address issues related to independent contractor status.

All of these easy services contracts can be created using the simple wizards at RocketLawyer.com. Once complete, services contracts can be stored online for safety and future reference. Finally, you can also find a host of complimentary forms and agreements to further document your personal services relationship, like confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements and more.

Labels: consulting, consulting agreement, legal forms, service contracts, services, services agreement, work for hire