Contract and legal guides
Which legal pages your website actually needs
One of these is legally required almost everywhere. The rest are optional in law and expensive to omit in practice — which is a different argument, and worth telling apart.
Read the guideWebsites & online business
Affiliate and influencer disclosure, from the merchant's side
Most guidance on disclosure is written for the person posting. The enforcement risk sits with the brand paying — and it is not discharged by a clause telling the affiliate to behave.
Websites & online business
What an app development contract has to settle before anyone writes code
Four things decide whether a build ends well: who owns the code, what counts as done, what happens if the developer disappears, and who holds the store accounts.
Reading contracts
Arbitration clauses: what you give up, and when arbitration is the better forum
Arbitration is quicker and quieter than court, and the award is close to unappealable. Whether that helps you depends on which side of the dispute you expect to be on.
Health & consent
Are liability waivers enforceable? Mostly, and never for the thing you fear
A waiver is close to worthless in three states, void by statute for fee-charging gyms in New York, and useless everywhere against the conduct most likely to injure someone.
Money & getting paid
Selling a car or equipment privately, and what "as is" really covers
Private sellers rely on "sold as seen" to end their responsibility. It disclaims a warranty they mostly never gave, and leaves the three real risks untouched.
Company & ownership
When a decision actually needs a board resolution
Most decisions a company makes need no resolution at all. The handful that do are the ones a bank, a registry or a buyer will later ask you to prove.
Reading contracts
How to serve a breach of contract notice that actually holds up
A notice sent to the wrong address, by the wrong method, or without the cure period does not merely fail. It can turn your termination into your breach.
Renting & property
Breaking a lease early, and what it actually costs
Leaving early is a breach, not a termination. What it costs depends almost entirely on whether your state makes the landlord look for a replacement.
Reading contracts
What a cease and desist letter can actually do — and when sending one backfires
Sending one is cheap and sometimes decisive. It also hands the other side a dated document, a choice of courtroom, and occasionally a claim against you.
Health & consent
Research consent forms: the elements, the IRB, and the clause you may not include
Unlike treatment consent, research consent has a statutory element list — and one clause the regulation forbids outright, which most people expect to find in it.
Money & getting paid
When a customer will not pay: the escalation ladder, and where it stops being worth it
Most people chase an unpaid invoice for four months and then jump straight to court. The steps in between are cheaper, faster, and where the money usually comes from.
Websites & online business
Data processing agreements, and when you actually need one
A DPA is required whenever someone processes personal data on your instructions — and is the wrong document when they decide the purpose themselves. The distinction does most of the work.
Websites & online business
DMCA takedown and counter-notice, as a seller and as a platform
A takedown notice is a statutory form with six required elements and a perjury declaration. Get one wrong and the host can ignore it; overstate the claim and you can be sued for the notice itself.
Ideas & intellectual property
Do you need to register a trademark, or is using it enough?
You already have trademark rights if you are trading under a name. The question is how far they reach — and the answer is: about as far as your customers.
Websites & online business
Dropshipping and the defective product: who actually carries it
Dropshipping outsources fulfilment. It does not outsource liability, and the reason is unglamorous: the injured buyer sues whoever they can reach.
Family & personal
What happens if you die without a will
The state does not take your estate. It applies a formula written for an average family — and the further you are from average, the worse it fits.
Work & hiring
Employee equity, explained: vesting, cliffs, exercise windows and the tax nobody mentions
The offer says 40,000 options. The number is the least important thing about it. The strike price, the vesting schedule and the exercise window decide what it is worth.
Work & hiring
When an employee handbook becomes a contract nobody meant to sign
A handbook is written to be helpful and read to be binding. The section most likely to become a contract is the one on discipline — the part written to sound fair.
Renting & property
How an eviction actually works, and where it goes wrong
An eviction is a court case with a document at the front of it. The document is where most cases are won and lost.
Ideas & intellectual property
Exclusive, sole or non-exclusive — and the terms that set a licence's real value
Exclusivity is the headline and rarely the substance. Field of use, territory, sublicensing and the exit terms move more money than the word in the grant clause.
Company & ownership
Founder vesting, and the co-founder who leaves in month seven
A founders' agreement exists for one scenario: somebody leaves early and keeps a third of the company. Vesting is the clause that makes that survivable.
Running a business
What to check before you sign a franchise agreement
Nobody vets a franchise disclosure document. It is delivered, not approved — and the two items that decide whether the numbers work are the ones franchisors are not required to fill in.
Money & getting paid
What "full and final settlement" actually closes off
The number is what people negotiate. The release clause is what they are actually signing, and it is the part that decides whether the dispute is genuinely over.
Health & consent
HIPAA authorization or records release: which one unlocks what
A patient asking for their own records and a law firm asking for the same records are governed by different rules. One compels a response in 30 days; the other compels nothing at all.
Websites & online business
How to fight a chargeback, and what documentation actually wins
You get one submission, a short window, and an audience that will not click a link or watch a video. Almost every lost chargeback is lost on the format rather than the facts.
Family & personal
What an affidavit is, and how to swear one properly
It is not a strong letter. It is evidence, given under oath, and the rules that apply to a witness in a courtroom apply to the page.
Work & hiring
How to write a resignation letter, and how much notice you actually owe
Two weeks is a custom, not a rule. What you actually owe is in your contract — and in most of the US, that is nothing at all.
Health & consent
What informed consent requires, and what a signed form proves
The signature is the easiest part to obtain and the least useful thing to have. What decides a consent claim is the note describing the conversation.
Money & getting paid
What an invoice has to contain, and the payment terms that actually get paid
Most unpaid invoices are not disputed. They are unmatched, misaddressed, or waiting behind a reference number nobody supplied.
Reading contracts
Is it defamation — or just something that feels defamatory?
Most statements that feel defamatory are not. The gap between the everyday sense of the word and the legal test is where the expensive mistakes get made.
Running a business
Joint venture, partnership, or just a contract — how to pick the right one
Most collaborations do not need a joint venture. The ones that do need to decide, early, whether the venture is a contract or a company — because the default answer is neither, and it is worse.
Money & getting paid
Lending money to family, and how to paper it properly
Undocumented family loans fail twice: the money is hard to recover, and the tax authority treats the whole thing as a gift. One page fixes both.
Family & personal
Living will, healthcare proxy, advance directive: which is which
One document says what you want. The other says who decides when the situation is not the one you wrote about — which it usually is not.
Company & ownership
Does your LLC need an operating agreement?
Without one, your LLC is governed by your state's default rules — written by a legislature that has never met you, and rarely saying what you would have chosen.
Company & ownership
LLC or corporation — what the choice actually changes
Liability protection is the one thing the two structures have in common. The choice is really about tax, ownership and whether anyone will ever buy shares from you.
Websites & online business
MSA and SOW: what goes in each, and which one wins
The MSA is negotiated by lawyers and the SOW is written by the delivery team. Both are contract, and the second one is where the liability cap quietly gets rewritten.
Work & hiring
Is an offer letter a contract? What it commits, and what it does not
Most US offer letters say they are not a contract. That sentence is narrower than it sounds — and several of the promises above it are enforceable anyway.
Study & training
What online course terms of sale actually have to cover
Four clauses do almost all the work: what the buyer gets, for how long, what they may do with it, and when they get their money back. Most course pages are silent on at least two.
Websites & online business
Open source obligations, and what actually triggers them
Almost every open source obligation is triggered by distribution, and running software on your own servers is not distribution. Knowing exactly where that line sits is most of compliance.
Running a business
Partnership agreements, and the default rules you get if you never write one
Nobody signs up for equal profit shares after putting in 80% of the money. The statute signs you up for it, quietly, the moment you start trading together.
Money & getting paid
What you are actually signing when someone asks for a personal guarantee
A landlord or supplier asks for "just a personal guarantee, it is standard". It is standard. It is also the document that puts your own money behind the company.
Company & ownership
What actually keeps a company's debts away from your house
Missed meetings are the formality everyone worries about and the one that moves courts least. Commingled money and misrepresentation are what actually take the shield down.
Family & personal
What makes a prenuptial agreement enforceable
Prenups are rarely struck down for what they say. They are struck down for how they were signed — late, without disclosure, without separate advice.
Renting & property
The paperwork in a property sale, and what each document does
A sale is three separate legal events that most people collapse into one: the contract that binds, the deed that transfers, and the recording that protects.
Websites & online business
What your refund policy has to offer, and what you get to choose
One page answers two different questions. What the law makes you refund is fixed and applies whether you publish anything or not. What your policy adds is yours — and binds you once written.
Renting & property
How much can a landlord raise the rent, and when?
Three regimes govern rent increases in the US, and which one you are in decides everything. Most tenants are in the one with no cap at all.
Websites & online business
The parts of a SaaS agreement that decide what you actually bought
Most of a SaaS contract is unremarkable. Service levels, data, exit and renewal price carry nearly all of the risk — and three of the four usually sit outside the document you were sent.
Renting & property
What a landlord can and cannot take from your deposit
Most deposit arguments are settled by a date rather than by a carpet. Miss the statutory deadline and, in several states, the right to deduct anything disappears.
Running a business
What belongs in a service agreement — and the clauses that decide when you get paid
A services deal has three separate jobs to do and usually one document to do them in. The payment clause is rarely the problem — the acceptance clause is.
Work & hiring
Should you sign the severance agreement?
You are being offered money in exchange for your right to sue. That can be a good trade — but the deadline on the page is often shorter than the one the law gives you.
Company & ownership
What a shareholder agreement is for, and the six clauses that decide it
The bylaws say how the company works. The shareholder agreement says what happens between the owners when one of them wants out, or wants to sell everyone else's shares too.
Reading contracts
Is small claims court worth it — and what happens after you win
Filing is cheap, the hearing is short and the judgment is real. Whether it was worth doing gets decided afterwards, by whether there is anything to collect against.
Ideas & intellectual property
Someone copied your work — the enforcement ladder, in order of cost
Most copies come down within days, for nothing, by writing to the host rather than the copier. The expensive routes are further up the ladder and are rarely needed.
Running a business
Supply and manufacturing agreements: the terms that decide what happens when a shipment is wrong
Buyers assume they can reject anything that is not exactly right. Under a scheduled supply agreement, usually they cannot — and the right they do have expires quietly on acceptance.
Health & consent
Telehealth consent, and the licensing question sitting behind it
The consent form is the easy half. The harder half is that the licence you need is for the state the patient is sitting in, and no consent form can waive that.
Websites & online business
Terms of service, and the click that makes them binding
Nobody reads them, and that has never been the test. What decides enforceability is whether the user was shown the terms and did something that counts as agreeing.
Ideas & intellectual property
Trademark, copyright or patent — what each one actually protects
Three regimes, three different jobs. Almost every product carries all of them at once, plus a fourth nobody mentions — and the expensive errors come from asking one to do another's work.
Study & training
Tuition refunds when you withdraw: what you actually get back
Students assume withdrawing means paying for the part they attended. Two different formulas apply, neither is that one, and the difference between them is a bill.
Study & training
Tutoring agreements: cancellations, payment and safeguarding
Almost every tutoring dispute is one of three things: a session that did not happen, money paid in advance for sessions that never will, or a check nobody obtained.
Study & training
Is an unpaid internship legal? The test that actually decides
Agreeing to work for free does not make it lawful. In the US a seven-factor test decides who the internship was really for; in the UK the question is not asked at all.
Ideas & intellectual property
What actually counts as a trade secret — and why an NDA is only half of it
Calling information confidential does not make it a trade secret. The status is earned by how you behaved before the dispute, not by what the contract says.
Family & personal
What makes a will valid, and what quietly voids one
A will is the one document nobody can correct once it matters. Almost every failure is an execution error, not a drafting error.
Study & training
Who owns course materials — and who owns student work
Nine categories of commissioned work can be made "for hire" by written agreement. Four of them are education-shaped, which makes course material a genuine exception to the usual freelance rule.
Ideas & intellectual property
Who owns the work you paid a freelancer to make
Paying in full does not transfer copyright, and the work-for-hire clause in most freelance contracts does nothing at all. Both sides usually discover this at the same bad moment.
Work & hiring
Written warnings and performance improvement plans: what they signal, on both sides
A performance improvement plan is either a route back or the documentation before an exit. The plan itself usually tells you which — if you read it for what it measures.
Money & getting paid
How to write a demand letter that actually works
A good demand letter is short, unemotional and specific. Most of the ones that fail are long, angry and vague — which is why they get filed rather than answered.
Family & personal
Power of attorney, explained
The document that decides who can act for you when you cannot act for yourself — and the one people most often leave until it is too late to sign.
AI & legal work
Are AI-generated contracts legally binding?
Contract law does not care what tool produced the document. It cares about offer, acceptance, consideration and certainty — which is both reassuring and beside the point.
Running a business
The freelance contract checklist: ten clauses that get you paid
Most freelance payment problems are scope problems wearing a disguise. These ten clauses fix the underlying issue before it becomes an invoice you are chasing.
Renting & property
What to check in a lease before you sign
Fifteen things to check in a residential tenancy agreement, and the three clauses that are commonly in leases but rarely enforceable.
Running a business
Mutual vs one-way NDA: which one you actually need
The mutual-versus-one-way question is the easy part. The clauses that decide whether an NDA is worth signing are the definition, the carve-outs and the term.
Work & hiring
Employee or independent contractor? How to tell, and which agreement to use
Calling someone a contractor does not make them one. The test is how the work happens — and getting it wrong is one of the more expensive paperwork mistakes available.
Work & hiring
Are non-competes enforceable in 2026?
The nationwide ban never took effect and has now been formally withdrawn. Enforceability is back to being a state-by-state question — and the answers vary enormously.
Running a business
Auto-renewal clauses, and the deadline that actually matters
The renewal date is not your deadline. The notice date is — and on a 12-month contract with 90 days' notice, it arrives nine months in.
Reading contracts
How to read a contract properly in 30 minutes
Reading a contract front to back is the worst way to read a contract. Here is the order that finds the risk first, while you are still paying attention.
Reading contracts
Contract clauses explained, in plain English
A working glossary of the clauses that appear in nearly every agreement, written for the person who has to sign one rather than the person who drafted it.
Reading contracts
12 contract red flags to check before you sign
Bad contract outcomes rarely come from exotic fine print. They come from twelve clauses that appear in almost every agreement and get skimmed every time.
Signing & execution
Are electronic signatures legally binding?
For ordinary contracts, yes — and it has been settled law for 25 years. The interesting part is the short list of documents where it is still not true.
Browse by topic
Reading contracts
What to look for before you sign, and what the clauses actually do.
- Arbitration clauses: what you give up, and when arbitration is the better forum
- How to serve a breach of contract notice that actually holds up
- What a cease and desist letter can actually do — and when sending one backfires
- Is it defamation — or just something that feels defamatory?
- Is small claims court worth it — and what happens after you win
- How to read a contract properly in 30 minutes
- Contract clauses explained, in plain English
- 12 contract red flags to check before you sign
Signing & execution
Getting a document validly signed, and when ink is still required.
Running a business
NDAs, client contracts, suppliers, partners and renewals.
- What to check before you sign a franchise agreement
- Joint venture, partnership, or just a contract — how to pick the right one
- Partnership agreements, and the default rules you get if you never write one
- What belongs in a service agreement — and the clauses that decide when you get paid
- Supply and manufacturing agreements: the terms that decide what happens when a shipment is wrong
- The freelance contract checklist: ten clauses that get you paid
- Mutual vs one-way NDA: which one you actually need
- Auto-renewal clauses, and the deadline that actually matters
Money & getting paid
Invoices, loans, guarantees, settlements and what to do when payment stops.
- Selling a car or equipment privately, and what "as is" really covers
- When a customer will not pay: the escalation ladder, and where it stops being worth it
- What "full and final settlement" actually closes off
- What an invoice has to contain, and the payment terms that actually get paid
- Lending money to family, and how to paper it properly
- What you are actually signing when someone asks for a personal guarantee
- How to write a demand letter that actually works
Work & hiring
Employment agreements, contractors, non-competes and leaving well.
- Employee equity, explained: vesting, cliffs, exercise windows and the tax nobody mentions
- When an employee handbook becomes a contract nobody meant to sign
- How to write a resignation letter, and how much notice you actually owe
- Is an offer letter a contract? What it commits, and what it does not
- Should you sign the severance agreement?
- Written warnings and performance improvement plans: what they signal, on both sides
- Employee or independent contractor? How to tell, and which agreement to use
- Are non-competes enforceable in 2026?
Renting & property
Leases, deposits, notices and the rights on both sides.
- Breaking a lease early, and what it actually costs
- How an eviction actually works, and where it goes wrong
- The paperwork in a property sale, and what each document does
- How much can a landlord raise the rent, and when?
- What a landlord can and cannot take from your deposit
- What to check in a lease before you sign
Websites & online business
The legal pages a site actually has to have, and the terms that decide what happens when something goes wrong.
- Which legal pages your website actually needs
- Affiliate and influencer disclosure, from the merchant's side
- What an app development contract has to settle before anyone writes code
- Data processing agreements, and when you actually need one
- DMCA takedown and counter-notice, as a seller and as a platform
- Dropshipping and the defective product: who actually carries it
- How to fight a chargeback, and what documentation actually wins
- MSA and SOW: what goes in each, and which one wins
- Open source obligations, and what actually triggers them
- What your refund policy has to offer, and what you get to choose
- The parts of a SaaS agreement that decide what you actually bought
- Terms of service, and the click that makes them binding
Ideas & intellectual property
Who owns the work, what a licence really grants, and how to stop someone using it.
- Do you need to register a trademark, or is using it enough?
- Exclusive, sole or non-exclusive — and the terms that set a licence's real value
- Someone copied your work — the enforcement ladder, in order of cost
- Trademark, copyright or patent — what each one actually protects
- What actually counts as a trade secret — and why an NDA is only half of it
- Who owns the work you paid a freelancer to make
Company & ownership
Founders, shares, boards and the documents that decide who controls what.
- When a decision actually needs a board resolution
- Founder vesting, and the co-founder who leaves in month seven
- Does your LLC need an operating agreement?
- LLC or corporation — what the choice actually changes
- What actually keeps a company's debts away from your house
- What a shareholder agreement is for, and the six clauses that decide it
Family & personal
Authority, care and the documents families need before they need them.
Health & consent
Consent forms, records and the paperwork around treatment.
- Are liability waivers enforceable? Mostly, and never for the thing you fear
- Research consent forms: the elements, the IRB, and the clause you may not include
- HIPAA authorization or records release: which one unlocks what
- What informed consent requires, and what a signed form proves
- Telehealth consent, and the licensing question sitting behind it
Study & training
Enrolment, tuition, internships and the terms behind a course.
AI & legal work
What AI drafting and review is genuinely good for — and what it is not.
Do it, do not just read about it
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Every guide here points at documents you can read in full on this site — NDAs, leases, contractor agreements, demand letters. No email form, no truncated second half.
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