If you’re the kind of person who struggles with the legal side of your business, and you keep pushing contracts aside thinking they’re unimportant or you’ll get one later… please don’t go anywhere. On the show today we’re welcoming Paige Griffith for the second time! Whoop! She’s been on the show once before on episode 23, and we had her back today to do a deep dive on all things contracts, especially contracts for photographers. 

A little bit about Paige, she’s the founder of The Legal Paige, a virtual law firm working with online businesses and wedding industry professionals. She is a certified Juris Doctor barred in the state of Montana and holds a double B.A. in Economics and Political Science. Within The Legal Paige, she helps her clients and online community run legal and protected businesses and counsels them on issues related to contracts, intellectual property, privacy, and business law. She has worked with industry leaders such as Jasmine Star, Lindsey & Evie of The Heart University (ohhh hayyyy dats us), Hope Taylor, Davey & Krista, Colleen Christensen with No Food Rules, Jennifer Anderson with Kids Eat in Color and dozens more. Her mission is to create an online space where the law isn’t so scary and entrepreneurs can get legally legit in no time.

In this episode, Paige answers some big questions like “why are contracts so important? What’s the big deal?” “Do I need a contract at the very beginning of my business?” “What about if I’m just doing business or providing a service for a close family or best friend? Are contracts necessary there?” She also answers where she recommends getting a contract if you don’t have one at all. It’s a really good juicy episode. Paige breaks down all things contract-related and legal jargon SO freaking well. 

 

Paige’s Story

Paige is the owner and lead attorney behind The Legal Paige, of course, that is a playoff her name. She helps small business owners get legally legit without breaking out in hives. Ensuring that every part of your business is legally sound and all tied up with a little bow. Including contracts which is probably her favorite thing to talk about. 

 

Contracts are necessary

There are a lot of different reasons why they are absolutely necessary, but the first thing I always tell people is, especially if you are any type of service provider but particularly photographers, is that it explains the roles and responsibilities of each party in the contract. Your client will have responsibilities such as payments, when their session is, what happens if they are late, or what happens if they dislike XYZ in a gallery sent to them. Then obviously you are going to have roles as the service provider. Contracts lay out all those rules and responsibilities. That is the most important part. 

You don’t want your contracts to have all that legalize, or we call it mambo jumbo in it. You want it to be very very self-explanatory to a layperson that’s reading your contract. Contract law particularly in the United States has moved from legalizing (legal language) where you think an old 70-year-old judge has written it, to what we call plain English –which is where you and your clients both understand and that’s when you have a ‘meeting of the minds’. When both parties understand and agree to the responsibilities under the contract, then everything is smooth. 

It is the record of commitments that each party agrees to. That will ultimately help prevent conflicts, mitigates risk, and is much easier to go back to your contract clause seeing this is my policy for this situation versus back peddling and figure out what your policy is. If it isn’t within the four corners of your agreement, you are trying to get your client to agree to something that they maybe didn’t even know was there in the first place when they started working for you. 

Contracts also lock in payments and fees. That is very important for the services you are providing to explain what/when is due. Paige is a huge proponent of the term “non-refundable retainer” for a very specific reason. You will always be paying some type of retainer to somebody to book services on X date (especially for photographers), it should be non-refundable in any situation. Maybe it is transferable, but oftentimes it will always be a non-refundable retainer. Don’t use the word deposit because deposit under many state laws means that you can get your deposit back if the services aren’t performed. 

Contracts are also just professional. It extends to your brand, business values, and all of your policies in kind of a non-confrontational way. Your clients expect you to send a contract. If the contract is lack in key and super professional it is easy to read through, easy for your clients to understand what you are talking about, then BOOM! You have got a solid client for life because they are going to expect that professionalism with you with everything that you do. 

The contract is the first thing that you do with your clients, it sets those expectations right from the beginning. 

SITUATIONAL EXAMPLES

BAD: Someone kind of didn’t have a contract or they kind of had one in an email, a back and forth situation. This happened at the beginning of 2020 for a lot of photographers in our industry. They didn’t have a solid force majeure clause. Ultimately what happened was when Covid came into existence and that crazy “what if” scenario happened where everybody thinks hurricanes, avalanches, snowstorms are them but not a global pandemic that would shut down everything. 

This scenario applies to a lot of photographers, either you didn’t have a contract with a friend you were shooting a wedding for or you just had a very very small concise one-page document that you had everybody sign off on and you forgot all those necessary general legal provisions- like a force majeure clause. Essentially it made people be in refund situations and lose ten to thousands of dollars. 

That what-if situation that you are waiting for down the road is not an IF but a WHEN. We all experienced that with Covid, contracts can help you mitigate risks, for those what-if situations. You want to think about all that could occur. 

For force Majeure clauses, in particular, wondering why you need this clause? Well, many did include anything related to fees. It just said, “You are excused from performance if this act of God occurs” or “All these delineated force majeure events occur”. Nowhere in that clause did it say anything about what happens to the fees that your clients have paid. You want to explain at the bottom of that clause transferability for fees paid. Usually, they are non-refundable but transferable for a certain period if the force majeure event impacts your wedding for your photographer services, so on and so forth. 

Don’t be that person, get a contract with all those boilerplate languages (general provisions) in there, including force majeure. There are all kinds of clauses to include and luckily Paige has shared her freebie clause checklist with us (check the show notes).

 

GOOD: It was someone who had a contract and the contract was sooo lock in key that it saved them in this scenario. It is the scenario that we all dread, where you lose your images. This wedding photographer has been around for a decade-plus, always shooting in raw and then a backup card shooting on jpegs. They ended up overwriting the raw files the next week. They forgot they were on there. They thought they had their jpeg memory cards as a legit backup, but then their camera didn’t write it on the backup memory cards. They whipped their raw cards and the jpegs didn’t work and there was a glitch in their camera systems and they lost every photo from the ceremony on. They only had the photos of portraits before the wedding and getting ready. 

This is a nightmare situation but, one, they had a contract in place explaining what would happen with maximin damages and limitations of liability. You want to ensure you have clauses for situations where emotional distress could be at play. You have to be aware as a photographer that you are a professional, people are hiring you because you are an expert at what you do, even while you may not have a professional license. You do have to be aware of human error. You can have situations where you do everything possible with your due diligence and have systems and workflows in place, but sometimes things go wrong and you have to be prepared for that with your contract and your insurance. It’s an extra layer of protection. 

This person in particular had a legit insurance policy, where their contract said you can’t ask for more than what they contracted for, there’s maximum damages, and they can’t ask for emotional distress damages due to their limitations of liability clause in their contract. Then their insurance was going to cover them up to 35,000. 

It was easier to approach their clients with, here are all the things I have in place, we are going to get through this, and we are going to be okay> Their client was in awe that they were so professional and had everything ready to go, knowing that this was a possibility even though they never wanted it to happen. In the end, they were able to recreate things with the insurance money to reshoot and didn’t end up in a lawsuit or legal battle. 

Contracts can save you in those situations. You need one, then you need to ensure that you have clauses in them and that they are helping prevent conflicts. 

 

What to do when you’re first starting out

Lawyer answer, yes! Make sure you have contracts in place at the very beginning. It is essential. Many photographers and small businesses realized the power of having a rock-solid, easy to read contract this year. 

The photographer answer, you need to assess your own risk for that specific session or styled shoot to build your portfolio. You have to decide for yourself, you’re the power of your own business. You are the owner. You have the power to make all the choices and decisions that you need as a business owner. While a contract is essential and necessary for large high-risk situations, where people are paying you thousands of dollars for a wedding, I would be remiss if I didn’t answer as a photographer. If you are only doing free sessions, trying to build your portfolio, probably not. 

When Paige started she didn’t have one at the beginning of shooting. It never got into a sticky situation for her because she would assess the risks and knew which family members she could trust and maybe ones she didn’t even want to shoot with. 

For styled shoots and sessions, assess the risks. How many vendors are you working with for your styled shoot? Have you had any red flags come up during the planning process? If so, then have everyone sign a styled shoot agreement, it is going to make everything easier in the long run because then you won’t have to go into a he said, she said situation if some crappy situation occurs down the road. 

At the very minimum have some type of written agreement that is in an email or text that you can save that solidifies that yes your clients is agreeing to XYZ for their session: it will be this amount, how many photos you’re including, and XYZ is not included. 

Lawyer Paige says yes, always always have a contact.

Photographer Paige says if you are at the baby stages of your business and you can’t afford to at least get a template contract, try to have some form of written agreement between you and your clients.  

 

Working with Friends and Family

No, that’s a HECK yes contract situation. Counting on more than all of her fingers of how many issues that have come up with family members. Friends with reshoots or not liking the style editing. They just come out of the woodworks, where you think that person would never do that to you…

Emotions are involved in weddings and photos, it then turns the knife a bit more when you are close to them. Some weird underlying feeling that you should be able to do everything under the sun for them for free. Especially if you are doing it at a discount because then they think you will do it all and more for free. You don’t want to set that type of expectation. 

Make sure when it is a family member or friend and it’s a larger event (wedding or even a branding shoot where you might be trading with a friend) have some type of written agreement. Those are very very high-risk situations for something to occur and for you to get hurt down the road. Include all of your policies laid out and what you’re going to charge for services in that contract with them. 

Where to get Contracts 

The first thing you need to know is don’t go chat with your lawyer down the street. One, they are probably a little scary. Two, they probably don’t even know the type of business that you run. Don’t do that. Third, don’t Google it. Don’t try to piece together a contract by yourself because you are going to have all types of issues. 

Related to cross-referencing in the contract or invalid clauses where one clause says one thing and then you reiterate somewhere else and then they don’t make sense together. Often you think you need ALL these clauses and then you put things in that don’t even need to be in there in the first place. Stop yourself before you get a contract from an industry person that you admire. Just because they are offering that on their website doesn’t mean it is a sound contract. Here is the reason why, because they might not be attorneys, they didn’t go to law school and it is illegal to be selling contracts that way. They are essentially putting out into the world that anyone can practice law and write contracts and have people buy them. 

Try to find a small business attorney, especially for photographers, small business attorneys in the wedding and event world will know all the clauses that need to go into your template contract. Then get a template contract from them. Similar to our relationship, a lot of small businesses partner with small business attorneys and that is who you want. Someone that teaches you how to run your business and then you get a custom contract template that’s going to coincide specifically with the type of business that you run. 

You will spend thousands of dollars on your gear, you will spend thousands of dollars on your website and for some reason, you don’t hiccup. You are aware that is something you need at the beginning of your business. Those are all essential but don’t forget a couple of hundred dollars will get you a real legit essential contract that you need anytime you start booking. If you have that from the get-go you will be light years ahead of all your colleagues. 

We have created all those template contracts for you in The Heart Shop, they come from The Legal Paige (an actual attorney that is in the event industry) and knows what needs to be in them. It is still a template but it’s custom to what we teach. You have to ensure that you are legally legit and that starts from contracts and that leads the way.

How they are different from others

The first thing Paige did when she started The Legal Paige, took a good hard look at what she wanted her business to look like and how she would offer template contracts to the mass online small business world. Starting with the wedding and event industry since she is a photographer is key, she has extensive experience in what wedding and event contracts need to say. Understanding what’s happening in the industry, they’re constantly updating clauses to stay on tap with what’s occurring in the majority of photographers. If they are changing the X clause were changing it as well. 

You get LIFETIME updates with your purchase and that was a decision she made at the very beginning of starting The Legal Paige. The minute you purchase a contract you get lifetime updates, so anytime we change something you will get an update, and then you can change your contract. 

I LOVE this because I truly believe contracts are living documents. You should get accustomed to ensuring that your contracts are constantly up to date with your business policies, what your clients expect, with the changes that may have occurred in the last six months and, if you had a sticky situation come up with a client- can you better address that in your contract and now modify. Contracts are living documents and you get access to them free of charge. You don’t have to buy an update. 

You should be ready to update your contracts every few months and don’t worry Paige walks you through her templates. Walking you through what each clause means and how you can modify and amend it to your specific business practices. We have a step-by-step process of what you do when you download the documents with memos and comments on the side from Paige. She has her hand in every word and period in every contract. 

Paige has industry professionals read their contracts and giving feedback/suggestions to ensure that everything that you need is in the contract. Their boudoir contracts have been viewed by some of the top boudoir photographers and have given suggestions on ten different client scenarios that have occurred and now that is covered in the contract. 

Same with destination wedding photographer contracts to newborn contracts. All of those contracts are very different because they have very different clauses related to what you are performing as a photographer. How you interact with your clients and the type of service that you are providing them.  

 

Examples of Wedding Contracts and what they cover

The first thing is a coverage clause and that changes drastically with weddings and elopements. A standard wedding contract is going to be: you arrive and maybe your second shooter and you’re there for X amount of hours. That is what your coverage clause is going to say. With destination photography, there’s an additional session usually involved sometimes before or after the event so we need to cover all of that in that clause, so of course, there are nuances there. With adventure elopements, the extreme hiking up a mountain, all your hiking, all of your minutes on the ground should be covered as well and not just you clicking the shutter on your camera. Those are just a few examples of why a coverage clause would be so different in various scenarios. This is why you have to have different contracts for all of the different types of services you’ll be performing as a photographer. 

Another one is boudoir photography. Most photographers start with family/engagement/couple and weddings so they will have their two separate contracts. Many think they can use a generic session contract if one of their brides want to do boudoir photos for their partner. In that scenario people don’t realize you need to have a very specific clause that covers topics like “no cell phones or social media sharing”, your model release clause needs to have 80 million boxes they need to check and agree to. It’s important in those types of situations. 

Similar is newborn or fresh 48 photography. A lot of maternity and newborn photographers have very specific nuances related to XYZ situations. It covers your legal butt in all of those sessions and services that you would perform as well. 

Cancellation Contracts 

Amendments to contracts is just modifying the original agreements. You would never use a contract addendum or amendment to cancel an actual contract. You need a secondary cancellation agreement, that says within the four corners of that document that the original existing contract is now void. You have to void and cross out that original contract, and you need people to sign off on that so that all your rules and responsibilities and your client’s responsibilities are voided. In a cancellation agreement, it would explain what is happening with deposits paid or money that is on the line in terms of refunds or transferring to a certain date. Or if they have things on credit for a certain amount of time. 

Cancellation agreements are great because they line item what your client can and cannot do in terminating services with you. Often you have heard of termination agreements, where you are going to end working together and then that is under wraps as a confidentiality clause. A confidentiality clause you see in the cancellation agreement, especially if you are in a refund situation. Sometimes you might be doing things differently with different clients and that is fine. As a small business owner you can do that, so having a cancellation agreement would keep that under wraps. It’s between you and your clients, they don’t need to be telling other people. 

A cancellation agreement should be a one or two-line document, it’s super simple. 

In the same vein is a rescheduling agreement. That is also a separate agreement from your contract. A contract addendum modified is an existing agreement. If you printed out your original contract, it’s like you are stapling the change you need to clause 5 and what it is going to say. Then your clients sign off on that and then you just staple that additional page. That is what a contract addendum is. This contract is still in existence and everything still applies except this clause we are changing to say this. 

A rescheduling agreement is very similar to a cancellation agreement as a separate document but it would still void that original contract. Imagine sitting down and having paper documents. We now do things online and can get all convoluted. Oftentimes with rescheduling you are taking fees paid, picking a new date, here’s the new rescheduling agreement, this is what we agreed to and we will sign a new contract when you choose a new date, and then you will put this money towards that. But at this point, we are crossing out and ripping up the original agreement. 

It is normal to slowly build upon your legal documents and add them to your legal tool kit ready to whip them out at those specific times you need them. It’s not something you need to spend thousands of dollars on and don’t recommend that you do that because you will get confused from the get-go. 

 

 

 

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