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Removing yourself from personal liability
Message
From
24/03/2011 17:22:18
Mike Cole
Yellow Lab Technologies
Stanley, Iowa, United States
 
 
To
24/03/2011 17:12:10
General information
Forum:
Internet
Category:
Contracts & agreements
Miscellaneous
Thread ID:
01504773
Message ID:
01504895
Views:
51
>>>>This is exactly what I'm worried about. My main source of information is freelance web designers, and they definitely do not have the exposure as a developer in most cases. I suppose I should probably schedule a sit-down with a lawyer and get this stuff worked out...
>>>
>>>Before you incorporate, ask the lawyer how much protection, in practice, incorporation would give you. In some jurisdictions a client who wants to sue you will sue both your company and you personally, if you are a director. The idea being, as a director, you are responsible for the actions of the company. So, unless you have director insurance you could be personally on the hook.
>>
>>Thanks for the info! Do you want to be Director?
>
>:-/
>
>If you're just looking for some verbiage you could Google [errors and omissions disclaimer]
>
>Whether any such would be enforceable in your jurisdiction is another question.

That sounds good. Thanks for the info! I'll get on that.

>Buy an hour of a lawyer's time and talk to her about a scenario where you're getting sued - how it works where you are, what's most likely to happen, and what you can do to reduce risk. Incorporation may or may not be useful in practice.
>
>>
>>>>>Incorporate.
>>>>>
>>>>>It's much cheaper today. I think you can do it on line and you'll get that back quickly.
>>>>>
>>>>>When I started free lance work, possibly before you were born, on one of my first projects as an independent I hit the wrong key on a main frame keyboard and creamed a crucial table that people had assured me had been backed up and hadn't been.
>>>>>
>>>>>There were millions of the client's dollars riding on having that data.
>>>>>
>>>>>Fortunately someone had printed a report that told me what should have been there and the OS had not erased the data, just the pointers, so with a lot of effort, it could be put back together - sector by sector.
>>>>>
>>>>>That was on a Friday PM. I spent the next 48 hours writing low level code that pieced that table together and when the client arrived Monday AM it was OK.
>>>>>All weekend, however, I had been watching my life savings flying out the window.
>>>>>So I resolved that I wouldn't set foot in another client site till I had incorporated and went out and got it done.
>>>>>
>>>>>Aside from the liability issue, which is huge, there are lots of other reasons to incorporate and I've recovered that cost many times over the years.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>I'm about to present a proposal to a client (on a freelance basis) and I'm in need of some verbiage to release myself of personal liability. I know the safest thing to do would be to form an LLC, but I was told that that's probably overkill for a freelance developer that doesn't plan on having steady freelance work.
>>>>>
>>>>>Any advice out there? Does anybody have some verbiage they would copy and paste for me? Thanks!
Very fitting: http://xkcd.com/386/
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