Software contract questions

[Fritz Meissner]

Hi folks,

Rather than attempting to beat around the bush with more cryptic
questions, I'll just put it out there: I'm trying to understand some
risks involved in setting up a software "consultancy" (for want of a
better word).

Some people have a multi-person job that they want done, but they know
me and they want to deal with only me. Their idea is that I
subcontract to other people. I know that they aren't being malicious
but I also know that this involves them shifting a lot of hassle onto
me.

Some questions for the more experienced, then:

1. Do you ever have a lawyer look at contracts that you sign?
2. Are there industry expert lawyers out there or is this the kind of
thing one can take to a guy in the yellow pages (I think my parents
still have one ;-))?
3. Would you ever sign a contract where there is a clause about being
liable for anyone suing over intellectual property theft?
4. Do you have any sort of liability insurance?
5. Do you have a percentage that you tack on to rates when you have to
pay for stuff that is not directly related to dev, e.g. paying someone
to do tax, drafting contract for subcontractors etc.?
6. What sort of percentage over a full time rate do you expect to pay
per hour contractors?

If these questions scream - "you need to get advice from an expert of
type X who would charge you Y" - I would also be interested to know
about it, as long as that person knows the difference between a one
person organisation and a fifty person organisation.

I do not NEED the work but I do believe in them and their idea, it
would be good to see it work out as long as everyone is getting a fair
deal.

Thanks for any answers you can give me!

Regards,
Fritz

[ivor...@gmail.com]

This is relevant to my interests. I'd love to listen to a talk by someone who is waxing contract work.

Until then, I think at least discussing this via email will be great. 

This is slightly relevant. The context is design house clients but some of it translates. Mike has a design agency and he and his lawyer do a talk about contract. https://vimeo.com/22053820

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[Robert Fall]

I'll lead by saying I don't have answers for your questions. 

That being said, there's a really interesting podcast about freelancing that discusses many of these things. It's biased towards the American market but still has very valuable info. Near the start of its run it discussed things like contacts and subcontractors. 

It used to be called ruby freelancers I think but now is just the freelancers show. Done by the same guy that organises ruby rogues:  http://devchat.tv/freelancers

I haven't listened in some time though so I can't give you episode numbers though.