Client Testimonials
"Over a number of years working with us, what has really made the Waterfront Partnership stand out from the crowd is that they take time to understand our business and give us solutions to problems rather than sitting on the fence like many lawyers typically do. They are also friendly, relaxed people to work with,which always helps when you are in need of legal advice!"
John Doe, Managing Director, Pressplay Ltd
Case Studies
"We are a recently formed software development company, and we want to start selling our software in the market. We have written a standard contract based on something we have seen before, can you check it is legally correct?"
Our client is a start-up IT company. Like many small companies they are keen to keep their costs down, including their legal costs. As well as spending the minimum on creating their standard contracts, they are also keen to have standard contracts that do not need a lot of negotiation with every client. We reviewed a draft that the client had put together and advised them on improvements to the agreement. We also explained what is standard in the market, for example, what levels of warranties are usually given, so that the client could be confident that its standard contract was generally consistent with that of the competition.
"We are a small subcontractor and our client's customer has been taken over by another company. We have been asked to sign new consultancy contracts which seem worse than our current ones. We feel stuck because we don't have the direct relationship with the end customer and cannot negotiate. Can you review the contracts and help us to negotiate a solution?"
Our client had a longstanding relationship as a subcontracted consultant to another consulting company who had a service contract with a large customer. When the customer was taken over, it wanted him to sign a new agreement and needed to get all his subcontractors to sign up too. He thought they were being difficult by not just signing on the dotted line. We advised the subcontractor to stand his ground and make sure that the agreement was acceptable from his own perspective. For example, all the consultants were being asked to sign non-compete clauses, which would restrict their freedom to work on similar projects in future. His client was not overly concerned because this customer was his main source of business, but for the subcontractor this work was only one part of his portfolio. We discussed with him the pros and cons of agreeing to the restriction and some possible compromises, and ultimately achieved an end result that was satisfactory to all parties.
"We have developed our product in the UK but we now have a great opportunity to sell it in the US market. How can we sort out the contract for this and protect ourselves legally?"
Our client is a technology company who has developed a strong following in the UK market for its products. It recently found an opportunity to resell its products in the US through an extensive and well-known chain of retailers, and asked us to look at the proposed agreement. As our client saw a considerable sales potential in the relationship, this was a situation where the retailer was in a stronger commercial bargaining position than our client. Therefore, somewhat unusually for a reselling agreement, our client as supplier did not put the first draft contract on the table. Rather, they worked with the standard agreement given to them by the retailer and asked us to review the terms. In our review, we concentrated on protecting the essential rights of the supplier and its product but did not stifle the commercial opportunity by being too heavy-handed with our legal comments.