Contract Finishing Checklist: Make Sure Your Contracts Look Spiffy
Contracts are our tangible work product. When we send our contracts around for signature, they represent us and the value that we provide. Send a contract around for signature that's crap, and one of the signatories finally takes the time to actually read one of your contracts only to find it full of issues? That reflects on you. These days, especially, you don't want to send out anything less than top-notch. Thus, it's incumbent on you to make sure your work product is professional and well done. To that end, a "contract finishing checklist" follows that can be used as a final quality check before your contract goes out the door. P.S. If you have anything to add to the list, let me know.
___ Vendor’s correct legal identity used (Corp., LLC, LLP, GP,
Ind., etc)
___ Customer’s correct legal identity used
___ Recitals reflect background and purpose
___ Pages numbered and contiguous
___ Section numbered and contiguous
___ Survival clause section numbers match
___ Spell-checked
___ Proofread
___ Proper spacing between paragraphs
___ Consistent font size / type
___ Consistent date styles, e.g., June 1, 2009 or 6/1/2009
___ All dates correct
___ All defined terms capitalized and defined
___ No terms capitalized unless defined or unless punctuation
requires
___ Numbers consistently enumerated and written, e.g., sixty
(60)
___ Currency figures in $0,000.00 format
___ All exhibits, schedules, addenda properly identified in
master and incorporated
___ Each covenant or warranty has a corresponding remedy
___ No first person (you, them, us, we)
___ Vendor address of notice
___ Correct provision headings
___ Vendor (e..g, “Supplier,” “Vendor,” “Contractor”)
consistently named throughout
___ Acronyms identified on first use
___ Defined terms identified on first use or labeled “as further described herein”
Stephen,
Thanks for the checklist. It is particularly useful for my group since our lead attorney is very keen on having everything in order and we strive to put forth the best contracts we can. Also, it makes for more readable documents when all the items on the checklist are in order.
Gordon
Thanks for all your helpful information.
Gordon
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Simple elegance is probably the way I would describe this list. It is comprised of the basics which can often trip us up when we are in a rush. Thanks for posting this list.
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