Operating Agreement

If I were you, I would not engage in a business partnership without the advice of both a competent attorney AND a competent accountant.

I would definitely NOT think of using an "off the shelf" agreement unless my attorney checked it out first.

And I ABSOLUTELY WOULD NOT take legal advice from some random person in any online forum.

Look at it this way: a skilled contracts lawyer can find a loophole in almost any agreement. An agreement general enough in scope to be "off the shelf" is a gift-wrapper-bow-tied-godsend to such a lawyer. They will rip apart your template document until it resembles a cheese grater.

Partnerships can, and frequently do, go bad. And more often than not, when this happens, friendships are destroyed, families torn apart, and fortunes reduced to a smoking wisp of charred memories.

Do you really want to be in this position because you hesitated to pay a few hundred bucks to competent professionals? Are you really willing to take the chance that all your hard work and effort is destroyed because you used a template agreement?

You may think that the parameters of this partnership are "pretty straightforward". And they may be.

For now.

However, almost 50% of American marriages end in divorce. The success rate for most business partnerships is not much better. Maybe your partnership will never be tested. There's a good chance it will.

So the question to ask yourself is: do I want to feel lucky, or do I want to be safe?

Lucky... or Safe...

The choice is yours.

Gary,

You can. Find them on the Internet for FREE. Find them at Staples/Office Max for a few bucks.

I've worked under everything from a "handshake" agreement (not recommended unless you have a good relationship with the partner)...to a 15 page contract gone over by a team of Legalites.

My advice, keep it simple, spell out who is doing what for how much, put in any timelines or deadlines. My last contact was ONE page but it covered all the necessary elements that make an agreement a binding legal instrument.

Once you have an agreement and before both parties sign, run it by your attorney just to make sure it has everything you need. First thing the attorney is going to do is add a bunch of clauses (for your protection) regarding indemnification and location of dispute resolution.

It really depends on how much money changes hands, what the relationship is and how clearly you and the other party are in CLEAR ageement, make sure both parties understand everything.

Download free legal forms - from the 'Lectric Law Library is just one of many sites that offer FREE contracts.

Again, keep it simple (my opinon only NOT legal advice) and spell out in simple terms who does what for how much and when.

Good luck

gjabiz

Thanks for your advice.