Contracts for Your Business

When running your own business, it can be easy to believe that contracts can wait. But getting the best (or avoiding the worst) from contracts is often a major factor in how well and how quickly a business succeeds. This book, from legal expert and entrepreneur Charles Boundy, provides business owners and managers with everything they need to stay on top of contracts and avoid getting bogged down in legalese. The book gives an easy-to-follow overview of: how to make or avoid making a contract; what to include and what to look for in contracts; how to have a contract achieve what you want at the price you have agreed; how to identify and manage major contract risks; how to approach the negotiation of key issues; how to draft and manage a contract to best effect; what to do (and not do) if things go wrong. A focused guide for the time-pressed, this is an indispensable tool for all businesses. Read it and stay successfully on top of the many contractual issues that businesses face every week.

After qualifying as a solicitor Charles joined a London City firm, rising quickly to partner. After a stint in a smaller practice, he started his own firm, which he ran and built up over several years before merging with another central London firm, becoming managing partner of the combined 35 partner practice some five years later. Having initially dealt with property matters he moved to company and commercial work, specialising for a period in employment law after ceasing his managing partner role, and then handled a broad range of merger and acquisitions work coupled with commercial contracts. He has long had an affinity with developing businesses, acting for a range of family and other private companies in a variety of business fields. He devised and gave seminars on 'Law for Entrepreneurs' at Cranfield Management School and for many years ran updates on company and commercial law at a Cambridge college for those returning to the law. In 2004 he decided to go in-house with one of his major clients, The Random House Group Limited, where he built up and ran the legal function as Group Legal Director, recruiting and training his successor. He has written A Concise Business Guide to Contract Law (1998) and Business Contracts Handbook (2010), both published by Gower/Ashgate. He holds a Cambridge MA and an MPhil in Critical Management from Lancaster University Management School. Other activities include family, friends, walking, France, travel, wine, music and writing generally (including history and fiction).