Business formation
If you're still signing contracts personally, the contract may be fine — and the risk still yours. Forming an entity first means the business signs, not you.
Commercial contracts · Los Angeles & the San Gabriel Valley
Contracts drafted, reviewed & negotiated — in plain language.
Your business runs on agreements. I make sure the ones you sign say what you think they say — and protect you when it counts.
Who this is for
Reading the fine print at midnight?
You know the moment: the biggest deal of your year lands in your inbox, and you're reading it at midnight wondering what half of it means. Or your business has been running on handshakes and downloaded templates, and it's starting to feel like borrowed luck. Or a client just sent over "their standard agreement" and you'd like to know what you're really agreeing to. Creatives licensing their work, service businesses signing bigger clients, owners hiring their first contractor — these are the deals I handle every week.
I work with businesses across Los Angeles County and the San Gabriel Valley, in English or Spanish — and everything I send back comes with a plain-English explanation, not just legal markup.
What I do
The agreements your business runs on
Drafting
Service and consulting agreements, MSAs and statements of work, vendor and customer agreements, NDAs, independent-contractor agreements, and licensing — written for your business, in language your customers can actually read.
Review, with a plain-English memo
Before you sign, I tell you what the contract actually does, where the risk sits, and which terms are worth pushing on — a markup plus a memo you can act on, not a wall of comments.
Negotiation support
Behind the scenes or directly with the other side — your call, based on the deal and the relationship you want to keep.
Website terms & privacy-adjacent documents
Terms of service and the customer-facing documents that touch data — informed by the CIPP/US privacy credential.
How it works
From "can you look at this?" to signed
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Share
Send the contract — or tell me what you need drafted — and what the deal is supposed to accomplish.
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Scope
I quote a fixed fee and a timeline before any work begins.
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Draft or review
You get the document plus a plain-English memo: what it does, what I changed, and why.
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Negotiate & sign
We land the final terms — with me at the table or behind the scenes — and you sign with your eyes open.
Pricing
How pricing works
You'll always know the price before I start. Most contract projects — a review, an NDA, a service agreement — are flat-fee: after a short conversation about what you actually need, I quote a fixed price and we agree on it in writing before any work begins.
Where a matter is genuinely unpredictable — a long negotiation with many rounds — I'll say so up front and we'll agree on how billing will work. Either way: no surprises.
FAQ
Questions clients actually ask
Can you just look over a contract before I sign it? What do I get back?
Yes — this is one of the most common projects I do. You get two things: a marked-up copy of the contract, and a short plain-English memo that tells you what the contract actually does, where the risk sits, and which terms are worth pushing on (and which aren't worth the fight). You'll understand your own deal — that's the point.
The other side sent "their standard contract" — is that bad?
Not bad — but not neutral either. A standard contract is standard for the party who wrote it, which means it's built to protect them. That's normal and expected. What matters is knowing which of its terms actually affect you and which are worth changing. Most "standard" contracts have a handful of provisions worth a conversation, and most counterparties expect the ask.
Do I really need a lawyer for an NDA?
For a routine mutual NDA between businesses exploring a deal, often a quick review is all it takes — and I'll tell you when that's the case. The NDAs that deserve real attention are the ones that reach beyond confidentiality: non-solicitation clauses, IP assignments, or one-way obligations tucked into a familiar-looking document. Ten minutes of reading has saved clients from all three.
How fast can you turn a review around?
Most single-contract reviews come back within a few business days, and I'll give you the actual timeline when I quote the fee. If you have a real deadline — a signing date, an expiring offer — tell me up front and we'll plan around it.
Will you negotiate for me, or coach me to do it?
Either — and clients split about evenly. Some want me dealing with the other side directly. Others want to keep the business relationship personal and have me advise behind the scenes: what to ask for, what to concede, what the fallback is. Both work. We'll pick based on the deal and the relationship you want to keep afterward.
What's the difference between a review and a redline?
A review tells you what the contract says and where the risks are — enough to decide whether and how to proceed. A redline goes a step further: specific proposed edits, ready to send back to the other side. When we scope the project I'll recommend which one the situation calls for, so you're not paying for more than you need.
Can you make my contract shorter and still safe?
Usually, yes — and I'm glad you asked. Length is not protection; clarity is. A contract your customers can read without calling their own lawyer closes deals faster, gets signed with less friction, and causes fewer disputes, because everyone actually understood what they agreed to.
Next step
Have a contract on your desk?
Send it over, or tell me what you need drafted. You'll get a fixed quote, a timeline, and answers in plain language. Not sure what the document even is? That's what the first conversation is for.