Contracts: To Use, or Not To Use... THAT Is the Question...?

Do I need a contract? One of the most common and complex questions that voice actors ask.

The short answer is yes, always. But the form that that contract takes can vary from situation to situation, job to job. And I'm going to break that down for you here today.

Also, stick around until the end, because I've got a several resources that I can give you that will be helpful. We're going to do that at the end of the video.

Alright. Let's get into it. But before we do, I want to clarify one thing. I am not a lawyer, and nothing you see in this video should be taken as legal advice. There is no substitute for advice from your attorney.

This post is simply intended for general business guidance.

As freelancers, voice actors are especially vulnerable to bad, vague, and even exploitative agreements. Using contracts with your clients is one step to help protect both you and them.

And while I'm sure it seems like an extra pain in the ass step, it provides clarity, security and professionalism for everybody involved, right? Let me break it down for you and explain why using contracts is so important.

Number one, clear expectations.

Contracts help establish clear expectations between you and the client from the start of the project. When you put down in writing things like the scope of work, the deliverables, all the details, the timeline, right? That makes sure that everybody is on the same page.

And this of course reduces the chances of any negative surprises for you or the client down the road.

Number two, protecting your rights.

A contract is nothing more than a legal document that protects your rights, in this case, as a freelancer.

In short, it defines the Ts and Cs, the terms and conditions, of the working relationship as it regards things like payment details, intellectual property rights, confidentiality agreements and any other relevant provisions.

Having these terms in writing helps you down the road when you have to deal with things, when the project gets sideways, things like nonpayment or project scope creep or unauthorized use of your voice.

Number three, payment security.

Contracts provide a solid legal foundation to make sure that you get paid on time and fairly by clearly stating in the contract your rates, the payment schedule and any penalties and late fees you establish a professional framework and set expectations upfront so that your client can stick to those.

This helps prevent payment disputes and gives you recourse if you have a client that doesn't want to pay or is a slow pay.

Number four. Scope Management.

Scope is the general volume and detail of work to be done in a project, right? Contracts help you manage the scope of the project more effectively when you can clearly define the scope of work, including the deliverables, the timeline, what additional work might be defined as and what it might cost.

Once again, everybody is on the same page regarding the scope. Everybody knows exactly what the scope of the project is from the jump, so that if any additional requirements come along, you can add those and get paid for them.

This protects against what we call scope creep, which is when the client usually not knowing any better. Just ask for a little bit more. A little bit more, a little bit more. And they don't know that necessarily that this is outside the originally defined scope of work.

To which you can reply, Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Client, I can do that. Here's what it'll cost.

That's because you've clearly defined the original scope in the contract.

Number five, liability limitations.

Contracts can include limits on your liability and disclaimers and help protect you from certain risks. If you clearly outline the limitations of your responsibilities and your work, then you can help protect yourself against things like the client misusing your work or unforeseen issues that might crop up. And you can limit your potential liability.

Number six, professionalism and credibility.

Clients like working with pros. They like working with people who have their Schmidt together and it shows, more importantly, that you take your work and the project and their needs seriously.

Clients definitely appreciate working with freelancers, especially who have clear agreements in place. It instills confidence in that relationship.

And number seven, and this is probably what we think of first when we think of contracts, dispute resolution

In the sad and unfortunate event that a project gets really sideways with a client. A good contract can help you resolve the dispute. Good contracts often have dispute resolution mechanisms built right in things like arbitration and mediation, which not only provide structure to dispute resolution, but they help you avoid litigation lawsuits, which gets expensive really fast.

One of the best investments you can make in your business is to collaborate with an attorney you trust, preferably one that is well versed in entertainment law. To draw up a boilerplate contract for you that you can tweak for each project.

This one act alone can save you several thousands or even tens of thousands down the road by avoiding bad agreements.

Now, remember, contract doesn't have to be overly complex or stupidly complicated. It can just be a simple document that outlines the terms and conditions of the working agreement.

Now, in the real world, while you absolutely need to protect yourself legally and your client legally, let's face it, doing a multi-page contract for every little $400 explainer video that you do gets in the way of the customer experience, write it bogged down unnecessarily. The whole service delivery process.

Now, while a formal contract is clearly the ideal and is recommended, especially for more complex projects and things like that, there are times when email will suffice and I'm going to break that down for you now.

Number one, informal or simple, small-scale one-off jobs

And the project is rather straightforward. It might be, let's say one video, 2 minutes long, non-broadcast. The terms are very simple and clear and the project is very well defined. You can handle that through email.

Number two, an established working relationship.

Now this comes into play when you've worked with a client before, you've got a high level of trust, maybe even you've got a contract in place or a master services agreement in place. And now each job refers back to that master services agreement and becomes covered by it. in this case, you can refer to the Master Services Agreement and make sure any details that you cover in email also refer back to that.

Number three, clear and explicit terms in emails.

If you're going to rely on email, you have to be clear.

Make sure that your email communications with your client nail down all the little details, the timeline, the scope of the work. When you expect to be paid, what happens in case that doesn't happen, and anything else that might be pertinent to the project.

Again, the clearer you can be in email, the less surprises and the less problems both parties are going to have down the road.

Number four, supporting documents.

If you can include with the email supporting documents like maybe a scope of work or a prior proposal. Any attachments that you can include with those emails are going to help to bolster the clarity of your defined scope of work and of the entire project.

And again, assuming those are clear, they can contribute to a binding agreement.

Now, here's the big caveat, because people are watching this video from all over the world. The details vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, right? What's a face is an email in one jurisdiction may not suffice in another jurisdiction. it may even change from country to country, from state to state, from province to province, maybe even city to city.

Now, remember in situations where email should suffice for simple jobs, things like that, you should still keep a record. In other words, it doesn't help you to be very clear in all the details of your email. If you just throw the email out later, make sure you have a good filing system for all your correspondence with your clients.

And that's a good general business practice.

In general, you can sometimes use email for simple projects, for projects with clients that you have a good working relationship, but for more complex things, maybe projects with new clients, anything like a retainer or recurring work, or if there's complex terms, you'll definitely want to have a more formal contract in place.

Now, I promised you some resources that can help.

First, there's the book Voicover Legal by Rob Sciglimpaglia.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

I'll put the link to the book here. We've had Rob on the channel before. Rob is the preeminent lawyer in the voiceover space. He was, for example, Bev Standing’s attorney when she had to take matters into her own hands and sued Tiktok for unauthorized use of her voice. Rob was her lawyer in that case, and they found a favorable resolution. One reason is that Rob understands this business so well is that he's both an attorney and a voice actor himself. So he's got an understanding of both sides of the desk.

And he's also, well, well versed in things like A.I. and synthetic voices. And in fact, he's the attorney that wrote the NAVA A.I. and Synthetic Voices rider.

Second, there's the NAVA A.I. and synthetic voices rider, which is a document that you can download right now and use as an addendum or a bolt-on to your contracts that help provide protections for you as a voice actor against things like voice cloning, A.I., synthetic voices, and so on. And you do not have to be a NAVA member to access and download that rider. Again, I'll put the link here.

Third, I also highly recommend my lawyer, Ashley Brooks of Schroder Brooks. They're an entertainment law firm, and Ashley is one of those people that I trust implicitly with my business. I'll put the link to her LinkedIn profile here.

And finally, I'll put the link in the description in show notes for my personal policies page on my voiceover website. You can find that at PaulSchmidtVoice.com, but I'll put the full link here. That policies page was freely gifted to me years and years ago by Tom Dheere and I freely pass it on to you. I used it. I evolved it. I adapted it for my own business. I added some of the things from the air and synthetic voices rider from NAVA. You can copy that right now from my website. Paste it onto your website. Make the changes where it makes sense for your business and evolve it over time.

Now, when I do a simple project that doesn't require a formal contract, right when I send the quote, included in the quote is the link to that policy page so that I'm setting clear expectations upfront with my client and we're both on the same page from the get-go.

Feel free to use that copy from my website, from my policies page. It'd be a great idea to have your lawyer go over it and make sure it makes sense for you and whatever the part of the world you're working in.

And do me a favor, please don't copy any other content from my website or else that's going to get messy and I'm going to have to sic Ashley on you. And that's not going to be any fun.

For more information on the VO Freedom Master Plan or to get my Seven Steps to Starting and Developing a Career in Voiceover, click those links above.

If you found value in this video, if you think it'll help educate other voice actors, if you think it will help protect other voice actors from bad or vague or exploitative agreements and save somebody some money down the road, then by all means, like subscribe, maybe even forward this video to your voice acting buddies and let them know that there are resources available to help protect them.

Thanks so much. We appreciate your support. We appreciate you being part of this community and we appreciate you taking part in the discussions around these topics in the comments below, either on the podcast or on YouTube.

Thanks so much and we'll see you again next week.