Minimising Resistance.

Here are some factors that you can adjust to get the least resistance.

Does the contract look approachable? This is a question of graphic design at its most basic form. Good looking documents (yes, even contracts) get a better reception than ones that look difficult to read.

Does it have a market-standard structure? You want the contract to go through with the minimum of aggravation. Make it easier for the other side by avoiding unusual structures.

Are the clauses clearly labelled? Experienced lawyers read by pattern recognition. They are often not really reading – they are scanning for anomalies. Make it easy for them by separating points out and labelling them clearly.

Avoid FU clauses. When software contracts first made their appearance, the lawyers involved were paranoid about the risks. Eek! they said, we are selling a product with bugs, and a bug is a defect. We are going to get sued to kingdom come. As a result, the first software contracts were extremely protective of software vendors and left buyers with no effective recourse. SaaS contracts are the descendants of software contracts and quite a few of them contain these old FU clauses. They are not justified in the modern world, and they cause annoyance. Avoid.

Test with an intelligent (virtual) 10-year-old. If the wording can’t be easily understood by an intelligent 10-year-old, it’s too complicated. Any fool can make things complicated, but it’s not something that buyers appreciate.

The key point is this: you want to protect your own interests, but you also want to make it easy for the customer to sign.

Those two objectives, handled properly, are not in conflict. Think Venn diagram.