Legal Advice?

[AsburySkinsFan]

Oh I have one, he's just out of town and I haven't been able to reach him and this literally came up yesterday and I wanted to get opinions on it asap =)

Good contact your lawyer, not us, we know a lot of different things here and there are a couple lawyers here, but we aren't in your state, and don't know all of you details. The best we could do is speculate, and that's not what you need.

[Pride]

Not really. There is no reward for doing work without a contract.

Well it's not like I won't get paid for what I've already done, and the amount of money that was on the table was worth the gamble.

[Kosher Ham]

Pride...I don't know man. Sounds like you already lost to me.

No contract, no e-mails saying you needed or didn't need a contract is what it reads like.

Good luck, and you might not get paid. Be smarter going forward.

I expect to see this on one of those Judge Judy type of shows in the future.

[Elessar78]

Well I've actually met her dog, it's an awesome lab, I just couldn't do it!

Works with no contract. Won't kill dog out of spite. Are you always this soft?

[Madison Redskin]

Good contact your lawyer, not us, we know a lot of different things here and there are a couple lawyers here, but we aren't in your state, and don't know all of you details. The best we could do is speculate, and that's not what you need.

This ^. I am a transactional attorney, I draft contracts for a living and I would love to help. However, I won't provide you with advice because I am not licensed in Ohio and I don't have enough facts to provide you with sound advice. I suspect the other lawyers on this board would say the same thing. In any case, best of luck.

[Corcaigh]

Yes I know, I should've known better, but it is what it is. The risk vs reward was right

If the buyer won't make a good faith attempt to sign an agreement, letter of intent, or make a partial payment, I think you are hugely underestimating the risk. Now if you would have been idle and there wasn't alternative work there is no financial loss. :-)

If you want to be successful in sales, the first thing you need to do everyday is stand in front of the mirror and say ""No, no, no" until your tongue bleeds.

[China]

Have her dog killed.

~Bang

Made me think of this:

[LadySkinsFan]

Contact a lawyer. In the meantime, tell her immediately that all training stops unless she signs your agreement by x date. Don't do the last 2 weeks of training unless she signs the agreement.

She will most likely stiff you for the money. It will cost you more in lawyer fees to get the first 2 weeks training fees.

I don't do business without a contract, unless I have an email trail agreeing to my fee. I just did this with a new client when I turned around a proposal in 4 days. I started, sent my standard contract, and the client signed it within a day. Also, the person who recommended me to this client is an old friend of mine who is also working with this company as a consultant, so I was pretty confident that things would work out okay. I received my payment within a week of submitted my invoice too.

It's just good business to be on the same page contractually before you begin to render services. Make it your SOP from now on. And if a customer is putting up roadblocks in your contract like you described (which are totally unreasonable on her part BTW), she'll drag her feet on paying you in a timely manner too. I've gone to net 15 days in my contracts, just so my clients don't drag their feet on paying.

Better to let this particular client go than have continual headaches. Good luck. Feel free to PM me if you want. I have some horror stories to share that will pertain to your situation.

Also, I will not offer legal advice, just tell you my experiences.

[Predicto]

This ^. I am a transactional attorney, I draft contracts for a living and I would love to help. However, I won't provide you with advice because I am not licensed in Ohio and I don't have enough facts to provide you with sound advice. I suspect the other lawyers on this board would say the same thing. In any case, best of luck.

This. I am an attorney and even if my job allowed me to give private advice (it doesn't) I would never give legal advice on a message board. And any legal advice you DO get from a stranger on a message board will be worth just about exactly what you paid for it.

Good luck with your problem.