Creating legal relations as a freelancer

[Jerba]

I’ve worked on and off as a freelancer before, but as a student I’m sure you can imagine it’s frustrating trying to balance studying and freelancing.

Anyway, I plan on operating as a freelancer again starting next month. With this in mind, I was just wondering if anyone here had any insight on creating legal relations with clients (a viable contract in the eyes of the law). To protect myself in circumstances where perhaps a client refuses to pay despite completion of the work or without valid reasoning.

To summarise, is it worth drafting a contract as a ‘safety net’ for the worst case scenario, and if so how in depth does it need to be to suitably protect myself?

I would like to assume that circumstances in which legal action would be necessary are incredibly rare or hopefully never occur, but I suppose it is always a possibility.

Any feedback regarding this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Alen]

Check out Contract Killer at https://gist.github.com/malarkey/4031110 and Google “Designing in the open”, that’ll posibly give you some ideas what to put in your contract. Having said all that, you should consult with a lawyer to make sure you are not breaking or imposing any rules/laws not allowed by your state, country, etc.

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