As a freelancer, you need a contract in place to protect yourself and to let your clients know exactly what they are getting from you. Contract is a way to keep yourself out of trouble and to project that you are no less professional. This article will discuss some issues as to why a contract is so important to have a successful and risk-free experience.

Obviously the importance of contract can be understood in the times of unwanted crisis. For example, if you ever run into a client that refuses to pay, then you can proceed with your legal action based on the contract signed. If someone has breached a contract, consult an attorney (You may contact my friend-Eddie Law who could recommend some good lawyer for you).

As a freelancer, just be sure you have left no stone unturned to get the money you earned, because it is yours. Otherwise, the client could spread the word and other parties may develop hidden agenda when they deal with you in future.

When you prepare the contract paper, one thing you should do with extreme care; that is you must put a line in the contract that you will get paid even if the project fails to make to the print. A client could say the project was killed or changed so that your copy wasn’t usable. And this may result in you not getting paid for the work you have completed.

Another important lesson to learn is that when dealing with a client who is extremely close, or so close that you consider him a family rather than just a business client, even in that case you should prepare the contract and have it signed before starting your work. The hardest truth is when comes to business, there is no family or friends, every client is equal and must go through the same common phases before initiating the work with you.

Do not be hesitant to place the contract to the client. Though you will rarely find that people are unwilling to pay, but it is a way to protect yourself. From the client’s point of view, it also protects their interests.

Thus as you may have realized, having a contract in place saves you a lot of drudgery that may arise out of some unprofessional behaviour of some unscrupulous clients. Don’t be late like Karla who trap into the trouble in here freelancing works.

Now, we are looking for some good template on Freelance Contract to share with the community. If you have any good template, feel free to share with us. Thanks.

Photo by BollywoodHungama.

This post is guest blogged by Asif Karim.

eLawyer.com.my took off on December 2007, with a vision to serve the evolution of the Malaysian legal industry into a more vibrant, lively and technology driven entity. It has already sparked enthusiasm among the legal professionals.

eLawyer has a number of significance relating to the legal industry in Malaysia. Such as: being the sole job board for Law related jobs, that its, it’ll only project jobs concerning to legal activities, though the other web site may display legal job postings too, elawyer.com will ONLY show legal jobs, with a nice presentation and in an informative diction. It also has the added functionality of submitting Resume.

Secondly, eLawyer has an unique feature that can not be found in any IT portal around, that is it is able to calculate legal fees expenditure  such as calculating the lawyer fee for selling of purchasing properties, then comes the fact that law offices can use this web portal to purchase goods for their offices and other related services, directly through elawyer.

Besides these, it includes facilities such as assisting general public concerning Law issues, that is, common mass can post about any legal issue they find troublesome or simply just want to know about, an accomplished panel of lawyers will answer them through eLawyer, quality feedback with free of charge.

And also, it still remains the only IT portal on the Internet in Malaysia that advertises about Law books, that is, the users can post which law related book or journal they want and can browse the site to see which have been offered at that time. A lot of renowned law firms post their ads like Karpal Singh, Skrine, Tommy Thomas, Mindvault, Albar & Partners to name a few.