QUESTION
I own a marketing agency. Someone I know shared their agency's contract with me. Am I able to use this contract after making a few modifications?
Asked on Apr 01st, 2019 on Contracts - West Virginia
More details to this question:
I own a marketing agency and I am in the process of acquiring a contract. I have read that it is recommended to find contract templates, modify them to your liking, and have an attorney review it. Someone I know shared their contract with a few people, including myself. This contract was made by an attorney in Florida. I am located in West Virginia. If I like the majority of the contract's components, am I able to adopt this contract as my own and avoid worrying about legal problems? Or should I just have an attorney create one for me?
1 ANSWER
If I understand you correctly, an acquaintance of yours voluntarily shared his contract template with you, with no agreement regarding confidentiality. If so, I don't believe that you would face any claims of stealing intellectual property if you use the template to create your own contract, but the problem is that you (presumably) want the ocntract to reflect West Virginia law, while the template you've received (presumably) reflects Florida law. Although the law of Florida and West Virginia may be very similar, they are not identical, and you should definitely have a West Virginia attorney look over the template before you use it.
Answered on Apr 01st, 2019 at 1:30 PM