When companies require consultant contract services and for this purpose wish to conclude a consulting agreement, before signing it they should consider the consultant's status, in order to be sure that they are going to sign the agreement with the relevant person. The general criteria which should be considered include the following.
First of all, when the consultant person wishes to provide services by means of a consultant organization, it should be checked whether the consultant is the preventing shareholder, and whether there is an employment contract signed between the consultant and the consultant firm. When the consultant does not offer services through such companies, it should be asked whether the engagement introduced is a contract for services or a contract of employment- in the latter case the expert will become the hiring company's employee.
Another thing to be checked is whether the person with whom the company is going to sign a consultancy agreement has continuing power empowering them to negotiate, sell or purchase some products on behalf of other persons. In the event that the consultant has such authority, he or she will be acting as a commercial contract lawyer, and for that reason the commercial preconditions included in the consulting agreement may have to be corrected.
A third side to be checked concerns the very basic thing that is the name and address of the consultant, as well as the name and address of the consultant organization, if the person to be consulting belongs to one.
The term of the engagement of the consulting person is another situation to check. It should be pointed out in the consultancy Agreement Review when the consultancy engagement is due to start, as well as whether the contract is concluded for a fixed period, or it is a terminable agreement which can be terminated by means of information of one of the parties.
One of the most important parts of the consultancy agreement to check and to describe correctly is the nature of the consulting services of the contract. The first item in that section should be a description of the details of these services. The location is another thing of details to be included. Any reporting procedure if needed should also be mentioned and if essential details should be provided regarding it.
There are few more remaining things such as confidentiality of information, intellectual property (IP), insurance and liability should also be presented in the agreement for consultancy services.
