In the past I would have just punched up an estimate and/or invoice and hoped for the best. But I'm feeling like I should have some kind of contract to limit my liability (potentially).
Does anyone know of some kind of standard contract, perhaps some open source thing? I'm not asking for legal advice, I know I'll be taking on any and all risk if I don't have it reviewed by a lawyer. But if anyone could share something they like to use in their own work it would be much appreciated!
Legal things are always national. What could be common practice in country A might be void or illegal in country B.
Doing a Web search for my country results in plenty of hits. A recurring focus seems to be agile development. That requires of course special consideration if the contents of the work has not been defined to great detail when signing the contract.
(Originally posted at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12690495)
As mentioned there: be sure you understand everything in whatever contract you sign, and consult with a lawyer if you're unsure of anything.
A few things to pay attention too: First figure out if you need a Master Services Agreement or a Retained Services Agreement or both, the terms between them are different and will result in different levels of protection etc. That said, a lot of terms are common between them (and most contracts honestly) and you need boiler plate for them: for example Warranty (never give one), non-exclusivity, intellectual property transfer, confidentiality, travel expenses, incidental expenses, payment terms, confidential information, public domain, disclosure, publicity, termination & breach, severability, notifications, force majeure, dispute resolution, change request and governing law etc. I listed out the common ones, and if your contract doesn't cover at least those you don't have a complete contract. The short form contract I have covers all these plus a few more and is 2 pages long, the long form is 5-6 pages long (more details for larger value contracts, or more complex situations). Work is generally spelled out in a separate addendum, e.g. a Statement of Work (SOW), which lets you keep adding new SOW without resigning a new contract if you put everything together correctly.
So as you evaluate contracts make sure you look for things that cover you, honestly almost every section I listed you can read in plain english and it makes sense, warranty is really important so is IP transfer and payment obviously. All these interlink in ways to protect you and to protect the client from you being a douche which is only fair.