The company where I work is interested in forming a strategic partnership - we supply a security solution and they provide a data warehousing solution. Ultimately, a real lawyer is going to look over everything and bless it, but in the meantime, I was asked to ‘take a crack’ at writing some type of agreement so we could get all the issues out on the table as to cost sharing, joint marketing and sales costs, continued development, lead generation, etc.
Obviously, a lot of legal experts have spent a lot of lifetimes thinking of all the issues that come up in these types of agreements. I was wondering if someone out there can recommend a good website where I might find templates for basic partnership agreements and contracts that would provide a good starting point…
The (huge) problem is that you don’t provide any relevant info (such as what jurisdiction(s) are involved, how the parties are related, any any 100’s of other “oh, by the way…” type things).
Additionally, the situation you describe is quite complex - you will find no form applicable, but maybe something will serve as a basis of discussion.
Remember intellectual property, non-disclosure, liability in event of failure (did your drive die, or did my software kill it? did a customer screw it up?).
Come on JD’s, see how many “don’t forget’s” YOU can produce!
Lol. I agree with Happyheathen. This is too specific of a question to be answered here. Don’t waste your time trying to find a template. Relying on forms is risky enough for basic leases and wills. Doing it for this kind of issue is insane. See a lawyer.
Happyheathen,
Thanks for the link at Findlaw. I should have thought of it myself. They had a good checklist I found that will meet my needs. I realize I didn’t provide all the details (it is happening in San Diego) but as I said, I am just taking the first crack at it. Besides, I’m sure I’m not supposed to even be talking about the deal since these things are always hush hush before they go through, right? Basically, if I write the text and get it pretty close, it’s presumably less work for our lawyers to do later, or so the logic goes.
Don’t worry, we’re not going to do anything without proper legal advice. The idea was to just get all the concepts I needed out on the table so that I could start thinking about the answers to questions an attorney would ask anyway.