How to cover yourself in freelance work

Good that he's getting the agreement written down and signed by both parties.

Unfortunately, if the client is a deadbeat.....

Perhaps small claims court? But no need to borrow trouble, yet.

Is your friend doing free-lance art work? If so, then he needs to figure out who will own the copyright to his work. One way to protect himself, then, would be to have copyright vest in him, to be transferred once he receives his pay.

If, on the other hand, he's just doing some non-creative work, then he has already taken the best precaution: he's signing a contract. The only other thing I could think of would be to take a security interest in some tangible asset of the corporation. In other words, the contract would look something like: "corporation grants free-lancer a security interest in (identified piece of property or interest, e.g. a number of shares of stock), which will be surrendered by the free-lancer upon payment of his commission." Not a foolproof solution, to be sure (the property itself might turn out to worthless), but at least it's something.

Thank you for the info. My friend wants to know if he can stipulate in the contract that if the guy doesn't pay him, my friend gets to bang his girlfriend.

No, seriously, this information was great. He thanks you, and I thank you.

Re: How to cover yourself in freelance work


Uh, is your friend kind of dumb in other respects, too? This sounds a lot like "Loan me $50.00 and I'll pay you back, double, when my horse comes in." I mean, your friend is a sub-contractor, in essence, right? He is NOT a partner subject to a sharing of the risk.