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Fucking Sue Me

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Re: Fucking Sue Me

#3
Just change that one line "He was right. I got the job, they paid, things went well, nobody got sued." to "He was wrong. I got the job, they didn't pay, things went horribly wrong, everybody go sued".

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#4
post #3

Just change that one line "He was right. I got the job, they paid, things went well, nobody got sued." to "He was wrong. I got the job, they didn't pay, things went horribly wrong, everybody go sued".

Even if it were changed to that, the story wouldn't end with "I couldn't buy food, my macbook pro got repossessed, and I went to federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison."

If you do get sued and your business collapses you can always start another one.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#6
I still show my contracts to my lawyer, and sometimes really fight for certain clauses, but I'm realistic: Sometimes having a signed contract is more important to me than certain categories of unlikely risk mitigation.

If you have the luxury of leverage -- the ability and willingness to walk away if the contract isn't perfect -- then yes. Hammer it out to protect your interests.

But if the contract is critical to the company's survival, then he's right: Just sign it. It's better to have an income from an imperfect contract, then no company at all because you've run out of money.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#7

I still show my contracts to my lawyer, and sometimes really fight for certain clauses, but I'm realistic: Sometimes having a signed contract is more important to me than certain categories of unlikely risk mitigation. If you have the luxury of leverage -- the ability and willingness to walk away if the contract isn't perfect -- then yes. Hammer it out to protect your interests. But if the contract is critical to the…

Me too, although I think that contracts are only worth how much money you're willing to spend to defend them with lawyers, court costs, etc.

Good customer service gets you out of most predicaments, so I review the contract but spend more time worrying about how to serve my customers.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#8

I think the lesson is here it's all fine and dandy until someone does sue you. Then it's a different story.

If you're a 22-year-old with no assets it's probably not much different; you lose a judgment and declare bankruptcy and that's that.

If you're older and have a lot of assets, you just do it via a corporation and it's the same, thanks to the magical unaccountability of the corporate veil.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#9
post #4
post #3

Just change that one line "He was right. I got the job, they paid, things went well, nobody got sued." to "He was wrong. I got the job, they didn't pay, things went horribly wrong, everybody go sued".

Even if it were changed to that, the story wouldn't end with "I couldn't buy food, my macbook pro got repossessed, and I went to federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison." If you do get sued and your business collapses you can always start another one.

Personal liability would be a nasty thing to deal with after your business failed. And you may not get to start another company with a huge personal debt.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#10
Ugh.

At one extreme: giving your counsel veto power over what contracts you sign, and allowing them to bill time ping-ponging contracts until prospects give up.

At the other extreme: just signing everything and saying "fucking sue me" when things go sideways.

You should be somewhere in the middle. Contracts more often than not have provisions that are silly for you to accept verbatim. And, contracts more often than not have provisions you'd rather not accept, but that are baked into your prospect's own processes and not changeable.

No matter what you do, if you're being sensible, there are going to be tough decisions to make every once in awhile. If there aren't, you're probably doing something wrong. Like, for instance, signing tens of different contracts from giant companies without any legal review.

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