Get Rice: Ronnie O'Brien Rice, Ph.D., Lawyer

I get a lot of calls about contracts. What is a contract?   A contract by law is (1) an offer, (2) an acceptance, and (3) mutuality. *There is a case about a million-dollar case in Alaska where a contract was formed on a napkin.   Back to our regularly scheduled program, let's break the elements of a contract. The first element is an offer. An offer is when a party offers some type of product or services to another person. The next element is an acceptance in which a party sees an offer and either offers to pay for service and/or product; or provides some service and/or product in exchange. The latter part is what some courts may call a reliance.   The third element of a contract is mutuality . Mutuality is a tricky element of contract law. Because mutuality is if the value comparable, it bargained for, or the value exchange reasonable. Many people don't understand that even though you might have a written contract, if there is some type of the duress, no bar...

For a lot of businesses, having a goal is important to its growth. But, how many actually have metrics to make sure they are on target for those goals? The answer is not many. This is not because they don’t want to do it. It is more so because (1) companies don’t understand the importance of having metrics, (2) don’t have the money to set them to have checks and balances to ensure they meet them; (3) don’t have proper repercussions for those who don’t follow them; and (4) don’t have a system to update them.  Yes, this is a lot!   But, if you are in business for yourself, you will quickly realize that you can spend your wheels doing a lot. And some of these things may be important. However, years later, you might find they aren’t all that important. It is tempting to go into the office and just start putting out fires. But, we need to be cautious of doing this because those fires can distract you form the overall purpose. Not having paper towels in the restroom is importan...