Best Business Practices for Photographers [193]
Writing and Revising Your Current Contracts
If your photographic specialty is unique, or you've found significant objection by clients to certain terms of your contracts, an attorney can be your best resource for revising your contracts or writing them from scratch. Further, many existing trade organization contracts have been the basis for litigation in the past, and case law "holes" may have been found that could diminish the validity of certain terms. A lawyer you engage could write you new clauses (or a whole contract) based upon his own present-day knowledge of case law, so that your contract is as up to date as possible.
Advising You on Legal Matters
There are many legal matters beyond contracts and copyright on which your attorney can advise you or direct you to a colleague who is versed in those areas. From sales tax issues, to zoning for a business, to labor laws, to estate planning, numerous issues could have an adverse effect on you and your business and could be avoided simply by engaging the services of an attorney for a few hundred dollars to get the right answers, specific to you and your business. And, in the end, if you find yourself in court about that issue, your attorney will be the one you'll want to call on to defend the position in which his advice placed you.
Taking a Case
If you have a relationship with an attorney, he'll be more likely to take a case that, had you wandered in off the street, he would have turned down. In either case, the issue you have may be equally of concern to you, but without that preexisting relationship, the attorney will be less inclined to help.
Understand also that when you have the attorney you want, you are his client, and when there is a dispute between you and your client, if the attorney has a preexisting relationship with your client (or even a distant past relationship), he might find that it is a conflict of interest and turn down your case. Although the availability of intellectual property attorneys and contract lawyers may be high in major metropolitan areas, in smaller parts of the country, there may be just a few who are best suited to accomplish what you need. In one instance, for example, I had a dispute in California and sought to engage an attorney in the municipality where the infringing party was incorporated. However, because all three firms in that city had, at one point or another, provided legal services for the eventual defendant in the case, none could take on my case. I had to hire an attorney nearly a hundred miles away.
What You Can Expect to Be Billed
One of the eye-openers when first hiring a lawyer is the variety of things you are billed for. Although it might come as a surprise, instead, it could give you an insight into how you might consider your own billing. Two charges I began to apply to clients were the pre-event conference call and the site visit for assignments that either did not really need one or for which I did not initially include a line item. These were inspired in part by bills for 15 minutes of conversation with my attorneys. I thought, "If they're doing a professional billing like this, it stands to reason that I can too—and, in fact, I should be doing the same." You'd be amazed at how many conference calls I no longer have to participate in and how much more participative I am for the ones in which I do participate.
Retainer Fee
Here's how a retainer might look (in part):
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LEGAL SERVICES RETAINER AGREEMENT
This Agreement is entered into by and between the {firm name} (hereinafter "Attorney") and {your name} (hereinafter "Client"). Client hereby retains the services of Attorney, its staff attorneys, paralegals, law clerks, and any