Solana Beach Lawyer - Business Law and Contracts

A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more people about good or services exchanged. Contracts are used daily and in most industries as a way to guarantee payment or services due. Once both parties have agreed to the terms and conditions in the contract, they are both legally bound to it.

There are three main types of contracts, written, oral and implied and all three are really as enforceable as the next in the eyes of the law.

Written contracts are put down to paper and usually signed by all parties involved in the contract. Oral contracts or parol contracts are those that are agreed to verbally between the parties involved in the agreement. An example of this would be if the kid next door asks to mow your lawn for $5 tomorrow. Implied contracts or implied in fact contract is a contract that has not been verbally agreed to or written down, rather a “meeting of the minds” about the contract. An example of an implied contract would be when you go to the dentist, it is implies that he will give you services in exchange for a payment.

I think it's pretty obvious that a written contract gives you the most protection if you’ve thought it through properly. Now the flip side of that is if you willy-nilly throw some words on a paper you could be actually be causing yourself more trouble if you leave terms open for debate and discussion and uncertainty that can breed litigation and conflict in itself.

A written contract isn’t necessarily better than an oral contract, but a well written contract is infinitely better than an an oral contract but they’re equally enforceable. We litigate and we write the contracts and there is value in us doing both. I don't know a lot of law firms do that - where they litigate and they do the transactions. We do, so I know the contracts, I know what to put in the contract to avoid the litigation. Most of the cases that we litigated, both plaintiff and defense, for breaches of contract as the result of improperly written contracts . Even some law firms don’t do it well sometimes and it can get you in trouble. So you've got to be aware of what we're supposed to know when we have to then, put into the contract and we can do that for you.