Consultancy agreements

Consultancy is provided by a vast range of businesses, from large international companies to sole traders, with the type of work undertaken varying greatly, even in the same sectors. Net Lawman consultancy agreements include comprehensive contracts between companies and simpler ones for individual professionals. All our documents are written in modern language and can be tailored easily to favour the interests of the consultant or their client.

Templates

Consultancy contract: client version

1 Review

This consultancy contract is for use by any business looking to take on a consultant. There is great advantage in presenting your own contract, drawn to protect your interests. The contract is suitable for any size or type of consultant. Drawn for a corporate consultancy, you could edit to take on a one-man band. It is an umbrella version suitable for either a single instruction, or for multiple or continuing assignments. It is drawn to be acceptable to a consultant but strongly protects the client.

Corporate consultancy agreement

2 Reviews

This contract is for use by a corporate consultancy working with large or small clients on any work. It is an umbrella version suitable for either a single instruction, or for multiple or continuing assignments. Option for accountants or others working for bank client too. It is drawn to be acceptable to a client but strongly protects the consultancy.

Consultant contract: individual in any field

14 Reviews

This contract is for use by an individual consultant working with large or small clients on any work. It is an umbrella version suitable for either a single instruction, or for multiple or continuing assignments. Assists in establishing your status as a consultant for tax purposes. It is drawn to be acceptable to a client but strongly protects the consultant.

Consultant contract: individual in any field: short version

9 Reviews

This consultant contract is for use by an individual consultant working with large or small clients on any work. It is a short version drawn primarily to protect you, the consultant. It is intended for situations where your work or your clients make it difficult or inappropriate to propose a long form contract. Use too, when the consultancy work is likely to be continuous over a period of time but where you do not wish to be an employee. It is drawn to be acceptable to a client but strongly protects the consultant.

IT consultant contract

4 Reviews

This contract is for use by an individual IT consultant working with large or small clients on any work. It is an umbrella version suitable for either a single instruction, or for multiple or continuing assignments. Assists in establishing your status as a consultant for tax purposes. It is drawn to be acceptable to a client but strongly protects the consultant.

IT consultancy contract: client version

This IT consultancy contract is for use by any business looking to take on an IT consultant. There is great advantage in presenting your own contract, drawn to protect your interests. The contract is suitable for any size or type of consultant. Drawn for a corporate consultancy, you could edit to take on a one-man band. It is an umbrella version suitable for either a single instruction, or for multiple or continuing assignments. It is drawn to be acceptable to a consultant but strongly protects the client. Provides full and binding legal provision in all the areas you need.

Corporate IT consultancy agreement

This IT contract is for use by a corporate IT consultancy working with large or small clients on any work with a substantial intellectual property, scientific or high technology content. It is an umbrella version suitable for either a single instruction, or for multiple or continuing assignments. It is drawn to be acceptable to a client but strongly protects the consultancy. Provides full and binding legal provision in all the areas you need.

HR consultant contract

2 Reviews

This contract is for use by an individual HR consultant working with large or small clients on any work related to human resources management. It is an umbrella version suitable for either a single instruction, or for multiple or continuing assignments. Assists in establishing your status as a consultant for tax purposes. It is drawn to be acceptable to a client but strongly protects the consultant. Provides full and binding legal provision in all the areas you need.

Corporate HR consultancy agreement

1 Review

This HR contract is for use by a corporate HR consultancy working with large or small clients on any work related to recruitment, employment or personnel issues. It is an umbrella version suitable for either a single instruction, or for multiple or continuing assignments. It is drawn to be acceptable to a client but strongly protects the consultancy. Provides full and binding legal provision in all the areas you need.

Website terms and conditions: consultancy business

1 Review

Standard T&C for a consultancy firm or professional services provider, where the service is ordered through your website but delivered offline. These terms are suitable for any fixed price, defined service, whether bought by consumers (such as preparation of a personal tax return) or by businesses (such as audit or advice). We include a choice of payment terms: single payment or fixed price or by quotation or subscription.

Website terms: consultancy business; includes terms of sale for supporting product or systems

1 Review

Terms for a consultancy firm or professional services provider, where the service is ordered through your website but delivered offline. Additionally, this template includes terms for providers that sells supporting products or systems with the service. For example, you might provide personal training advice and sell products to use for training outside of consultation sessions.

Website terms: consultancy business; includes licence for supporting product or systems

Terms for a consultancy firm or professional services provider, where the service is ordered through your website but delivered offline. Additionally, this template includes a license for use of systems or know-how that are provided the service, and strong intellectual property protection. For example, you might provide DVDs or manuals that you have written that support the personalised service that is your primary product.

Subcontractor consulting agreement

5 Reviews

This agreement is for use by any business looking to sub-contract consultancy work. The agreement is drawn assuming you are sub-contracting to an individual, but you can edit easily to take on a company. Use it for a one-off assignment or for a consultant you wish to use repeatedly or continuously. It is an umbrella version suitable for either a single instruction, or for multiple assignments.

Inter group company consulting agreement

This inters group company consultancy contract is for use by a group of companies wishing lawfully to allocate the cost of consultancy work to the appropriate group member. It can be used to formalise an existing arrangement, allocate expenses where they should fall, or to separate out the affairs of a subsidiary in preparation for its sale or the introduction of a third party shareholder. The nature of the consultancy work is not material.

watertight guarantee
Backed by our watertight guarantee

If the document isn’t right for your circumstances for any reason, just tell us and we’ll refund you in full immediately.

writing in plain english
Written in plain English

We avoid legal terminology unless necessary. Plain English makes our documents easy to understand, easy to edit and more likely to be accepted.

Notes
Guidance notes included

You don’t need legal knowledge to use our documents. We explain what to edit and how in the guidance notes included at the end of the document.

email
Support from our legal team

Email us with questions about editing your document. Use our Lawyer Assist service if you’d like our legal team to check your document will do as you intend.

Update
Up to date with the latest law

Our documents comply with the latest relevant law. Our lawyers regularly review how new law affects each document in our library.

About these consultancy agreements

These are comprehensive legal documents that cover the commercial and practical points that will be important to both the consultant and his or her client.

Although written in plain English, the concepts are deep and the documents are thorough. Using one of these templates will enhance your brand as a professional and well organised business, as well as protecting your intellectual property and helping each piece of work undertaken to progress smoothly.

Our contracts are tailored for three types of user:

  • for corporate consultancy (the consultancy company could employ multiple employees, or simply be a structure through which an individual works)
  • for a single self-employed consultant working alone or with colleagues or sub-contractors
  • for the client company or business

The documents for the consultants emphasise the legal structure through which the work will take place. For example, the versions for self-employed consultants emphasise the independence of the contractor for tax purposes.

The versions for the client favour their own interests more strongly than alternative versions.

We also offer variants for contractors in the IT and HR industries.

The majority of each agreement for a certain type of user is the same regardless of the industry because the main subject of the contract is how the work is performed, not what the work involves.

Where the contracts for specific industries differ is largely in the even heavier coverage of intellectual property and confidentiality, which are more likely to be important in those industries.

What is in these agreements

It will not help you to list every detail, but here are some of the important provisions covered by each document. Bear in mind that no agreement contains unnecessary provisions.

  • Contract summary and payment options
  • Work management procedure
  • Consultant's obligations
  • Option for the use of sub-contractors
  • Confidentiality
  • Ownership of intellectual property created by the consultant
  • Data protection
  • Option for no competition
  • Limitation of your liability
  • Duration and termination

You will probably be fully aware of why each provision is necessary, but just in case you need help, each document comes with very extensive explanations and advice contained in the drafting notes as well as a separate guide to editing legal document templates.

Additionally, to help you to avoid having to consider exact words, each template provides options - you just select which option you want to preserve and delete the others. This applies in particular to payment systems and working arrangements.

Protection of intellectual property

In the course of any business relationship much of confidential information is shared. Both the client company and the consultant have interests in making sure that any third party obtains it.

That confidential information may be strategic, such as future plans for expansion, or it may be intellectual property created during the assignment.

The structure and the contents of these contracts reflect the latest thinking on what is needed to balance the protection of the client business from theft of its intellectual property while ensuring that IP belonging to the consultant can be used elsewhere.

Legal requirements for personal data protection under the Privacy Act 1993 are, of course, included.

Other matters

An umbrella agreement

In our contracts, we keep the description of the services provided separate to the legal clauses.

In structuring the agreement in such a way, distinguishing the deliverables is much easier and the agreement becomes an 'umbrella contract' ready set up for the possibility of future assignments under the same terms.

All later assignments of work become automatically subject to the terms of your original contract unless you agree to a new one.

All that is needed for any subsequent assignment is a description of the work to be carried out and a reference to the agreement.

Treat as your standard contract or negotiate terms

Of course, you can either edit an agreement and use it as your standard terms, or you can negotiate the detail of each individual project.

The importance of a good specification of work

We cannot over-emphasise the importance of a thorough and agreed specification of work. The agreement you will choose will reduce the chance of conflict on the operation of the agreement and the application of the law, but only you can describe the work in detail.

The contracts provide for the specification of work to be placed in a schedule to the agreement the first time it is used.

The law relating to this agreement

The governing law in all these consultancy agreements is New Zealand Law.

There is little statute law relating to the provision of consultancy services so the framework for the contracts depends on basic contract law and tort.

What customers thought
Just What I Wanted
I believe that I got exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for providing this service.
Andee Gainsford
Easy Decision
The process to assess and evaluate the available contracts was simple. It was good to find a range of different options. The main decision to use is the language is easy to understand and the ability to tailor to the individual needs of my business relatively straightforward. The supporting documentation is also really helpful. It was great to find a contractual agreement so specific to the New Zealand legal environment for an Independent Contractor, and one which represented and protected my needs.
Jennifer Corbett
Great Service
My biggest concern using Net Lawman was that it wouldn't fit the NZ market. I wanted something accurate quick and cost effective. I decided to buy it because I did a bit of research and felt comfortable with the reviews.

The document was easy to customise for my business and took care of some issues I would not have thought of. I feel like it protect me and my clients. My first client to use this will be a lawyer so I look forward to her feedback.

I have found by having this document I was able to move forward in building my agreement process, and I can confidently put it on letterhead and present to clients. I have already recommended Net Lawman to others because it is important no matter how small your business is, that you have a professional agreement for services and a lot of small businesses I see can not afford legal support yet.
Lesley Hardy
© 1999 - 2024 Net Lawman Limited.
All rights reserved