Check yourself before you NDA yourself.

Know what you’re signing before you sign it.

Not all NDA’s are created equal

If you’re signing an NDA as many of us often are it’s critical that you not just assume they are all the same. It’s so easy for us to see legalese and just go kind of blind and just sign the damn thing so we can see again. Here’s the thing, you could actually be signing away your livelihood so take caution.

I’ve always been in favor of trusting super smart people with things I don’t quite understand, which is why I work with Matt Cook for his Product Prowess on The Fathom & Draft and why we hired Matt Sherlock as our lawyer to give us some security in our legal dealings including non disclosure agreements.

I wrote Matt recently and asked if he’d give me a few pointers on what we should be on the lookout for in an NDA. Here’s his advice:

Check the definition of Confidential Information.

You don’t want the definition of “Confidential Information” to be too broad. For instance, you don’t want it to include things like previously created work. You could be giving away your innovations if you’re not careful.

Check for non compete provisions.

Make sure there is nothing in the NDA limiting your performance of work for other clients, sometimes parties sneak non-compete language into an NDA.

Tick Tock. Is time on your side?

Make sure the term of the NDA is limited to a reasonable amount of time (at most 5 years, but probably more like 2). You don’t want to be noosed around their innovations for years to come.

Something doesn’t smell right.

Perform what we referred to in law school as the “sniff test” — if something in there doesn’t feel right to you it probably isn’t.

If you’d like to contact Matt Sherlock for legal advice or hire him as your lawyer like I have you can reach him via email at sherlock.matthew@gmail.com

Disclaimer: The information provided above is intended only for informational purposes, and is not for the purpose of providing legal advice.