When it comes to a written contract, it's typical for one party to offer their “standard contract” to sign. The other party’s task is to then review and comment on the contract before both sides agree to sign.
To put it in another, one side has the burden of drafting the contract (whether they do it themselves or pay a lawyer to do it).
The other side has the burden of reviewing it and asking for changes. In this post, we’ll be covering methods you can use to request for changes or edits in a contract.
Let's say you receive a contract and after reviewing it, you identify a few items that need to be changed or negotiated. Here are the most common ways you can communicate your request for changes with the pros and cons for each:
1. Bulleted list your requested changes in an email. The easiest way to ask for changes is to list them out in an email. For example:
👍 Pros: Easiest and quickest way to ask for changes. Revising language in a contract can be hard work and so you're leaving that work to the other side.
👎 Cons: You're trusting the other side to make the changes the way you want them. You also risk that they don’t make all your changes.
2. Put your comments in the document. Open the actual document and ask for your changes in shorthand in a comment box.
👍 Pros: Another easy way to ask for changes but with a little bit more work. Again, you’re leaving the hard work of actually revising the contract to the other side. But, you're giving a little bit more direction by showing where you want the changes.
👎 Cons: Same as above, except you're doing a bit more work by actually putting the comments into the document.
3. Revise the contract yourself in tracked changes. Open the contract in Word and turn on "tracked changes". Then proceed to change the language of the contract.
