Services and consulting
Consulting agreement
The paper for somebody selling judgement rather than a finished object: strategy, review, specialist knowledge, time in meetings. It says what the consultant will do and how much of it, how they are paid, whether they may work for others at the same time, and who owns the material they produce along the way. Because the output is often a recommendation rather than a deliverable, the acceptance and ownership sections tend to read differently from a build contract.
- In the catalogue
- Services and consulting
- Where it can live
- Any of the 184 governing laws
Who uses one
- Independent consultants and specialists engaged by a company for a defined period.
- Companies bringing in outside expertise without adding a person to the payroll.
- Former operators advising a business on the thing they used to do full time.
What you are deciding
- What the consultant is doing, and how much time it takes
- How they are paid — by the hour, by the day, by the month, or by the piece
- Expenses, and what needs approval first
- Whether they may take competing work while engaged
- Who owns reports, models and materials produced
- What is confidential, in both directions
- How either side ends it, and what notice is given
Blanks you leave stay blank and wait in the room. Nothing is filled in from a guess.
The sections a draft usually has
- 1The parties
- 2The services
- 3Time commitment
- 4Fees and expenses
- 5Independent contractor status
- 6Ownership of materials
- 7Confidentiality
- 8Term and termination
- 9Governing law
A general outline, not a required one. What turns up in a draft follows what you described. A contract is written in the order a contract is read.
What people call it
The names this kind of paper goes by. They are here because people search for them. They also filter the catalogue. They are not a wordlist the door matches. At the composer you describe the deal in your own words instead.
- consulting agreement
- consultancy agreement
- consultant contract
- advisory services agreement
- professional services agreement
- expert engagement
Questions people ask
- How is a consulting agreement different from an employment contract?
- A consulting agreement engages a supplier who runs their own business and usually controls how the work is done; an employment contract puts a person on the payroll. Which one an arrangement actually is depends on local law and on the facts, not on the heading.
- Can a consultant work for competitors at the same time?
- That is one of the things the paper decides. Some are silent, some ask for disclosure, and some restrict named competitors for the term. Restrictions of that kind are read differently in different legal systems.
- Who owns a consultant's frameworks and templates?
- Papers of this kind commonly split it: the client owns the report written for them, and the consultant keeps the general methods and tools they arrived with. Saying which is which up front avoids the argument later.
General answers about the document. Not advice about your situation. Not written about any one country.
Where it lives
A contract names the legal system it is governed by. That is a separate decision from which paper it is. You pick it at the door, from any of the 184 units in Governing law, including England and Wales, Delaware, California and New York.
You do not start from this page. Describe the deal in one sentence at the door. Read the draft back in plain language, in the order a contract is read.
Start it at the door →Related kinds