[sethrin]

This is a good idea right up until something goes wrong. The client decides not to pay you -- what do you do? The client asks for revision after revision on a flat-rate job. The client refuses to buy stock photos, or refuses to provide some essential software component. The client insists, years later, that because they changed their requirements, something you did is now a bug, and they insist you fix it for free. You write software library X for a client and then the client sues you for using it in a different project. The client asks for a change verbally, later denies making this request, and insists that you reverse it (for free). I could go on but the point is that there really are some things that aren't covered by a handshake agreement that you really should have nailed down, because you have very limited recourse otherwise.

This should include the work to be performed, payment schedule and penalties for late payments (which are generally covered by usury laws, the workaround is often to offer a discount for early payment), what copyrights are transferred and when, responsibilities for providing assets, acceptance criteria, liability for defects, severability, and controlling law. Non exclusive list written from memory, IANALATINLA.

Relationships may be important, but that does not mean automatically getting screwed if the client decides to. A well-written contract protects both parties. We need contracts because this isn't a perfect world, things go wrong all the time, and it's very easy to burn relationships unless you both agree about what to do when things go wrong, before the lawyers start getting involved. And again, if it does get to the point where the legal letters start flying, without a contract you are going to be severely limited in terms of recourse.

Another way to look at it is that without a contract, you are both taking on risk; the risk of not being paid is probably the biggest factor. If you can avoid a $5k to $50k risk by spending a few hundred dollars, why wouldn't you?

If you need more than my words to convince you, I suggest either reading clientsfromhell.net, or watching "Fuck you, pay me." http://vimeo.com/22053820

[brudgers]

A contract can limited the damage from working with a bad client, but not as much as screening out bad clients in the first place. I'm not saying that having a contract isn't better than every alternative, but it doesn't substitute for selecting good clients in the first place.

[sethrin]

If you can see them coming, yes. There are some people that even if everything goes well it's not worth working for them. But the contract is often the difference between a disagreement that gets worked out, and a posting on Clients from Hell.

[CamperBob2]

But the contract is often the difference between a disagreement that gets worked out, and a posting on Clients from Hell.

I can't think of a single case where that's been true, in either my experience or anyone else's.

The contract language comes into play when everything has already gone to hell. Yes, there needs to be a contract. But you should never assume it will give you any particular leverage over a larger, well-represented client who has elected to take an adversarial position.

[sethrin]

Argument from lack of imagination. But I don't think the the large, well-represented adversarial client is as common as the clients who are simply stupid. Either way it's not something I have a lot of personal experience with, but Clients from Hell is pretty full up with stupid, greedy clients and equally stupid designers with bad contracts. As an example: http://clientsfromhell.net/post/107004953453/me-your-invoice...

The above is clearly a situation where contract verbiage for transfer of rights would make any subsequent conversation on the topic very short. However, as to your general point, what do you suggest? Is that risk something that can be mitigated, or priced into your rates?

[brudgers]

The client conveyed their intent not to pay when they asked for the special favor. I mean the special favor was not paying when push comes to shove. In general, most people aren't sociopathic, so they have to find a way of rationalizing their bad behavior. The web designer/programmer does favors of a financial type for them and stopping the favors makes the designer/programmer the bad person.

[brudgers]

Contracts work really well for resolving problems when the parties operate at the institutional level. The people at the school board are constrained by the institution. The corporation managing the construction is bigger than the just another project manager running the job. Individuals are limited in how badly they can get away with behaving.

There were already lawyers working for both parties before they signed the contract. Nobody has to find one just because there was disagreement.

[brudgers]

Seeing them coming comes with experience. One heuristic I use is does the person try to see things from my point of view when discussing the contract. If it's a finite pie at the beginning, that's the way it will be down the road.

One of the things I've learned from Patrick Patio11 is that negotiations should be on scope not price. The implementation is that clients who expect me to deliver something they cannot afford aren't worth taking on.