A client has given me a contract that needs some changes before I'd sign it. I have no problem reading and doing basic research for a few pages of legalese. Most of the contract is fine but there are specific parts which I want to change.
Two paths occur to me:
- Get a lawyer involved on my behalf
- Express my concerns in plain language and have my clients lawyer incorporate the changes
Am I being naive assuming that option 2 is even a possibility?
Update
I got some legal advice, and it was a great help.
In five years of freelancing I've read probably a dozen different basic 1-2 page contracts that had very plain language and I had no problem understanding their intent, and felt comfortable with the terms.
Then I received a contract that was longer, more technical, and after a couple of hours of research I knew that some of it was over my head. After finding a local law firm that I liked, I was able to parse through all of the confusion and I got to say, getting a lawyers help was a great idea. I found out that my reading of certain parts was maybe about %50 correct: I both completely misinterpreted the severity of certain statements and completely missed some problematic things.
So, if you have a dense contract that is confusing it's probably a good idea to get some legal advice.