Signed a supplier agreement back in March without running it by a lawyer. Seemed straightforward at the time. Fast forward to now and I'm locked into exclusivity for two years with no exit clause. My business partner keeps saying 'we told you' (they didn't). Just needed to vent, and maybe hear if anyone else has been here.
Contracts
I wish I had paid for legal advice before signing
Two years exclusivity. Ouch. What's the actual damage if you break it early?
Been there. Signed a lease with a personal guarantee I didnt fully read. Cost me about eight grand to get out of it. Legal advice upfront would have been maybe 800. Not a fun lesson.
Honest question - did the other side have lawyers? If so, you're basically playing poker with someone who knows the rules and you don't.
They definitely had lawyers. Their contract, their paper, their terms. I just assumed it was a standard template.
Rule of thumb I learned the hard way: if the contract comes from them, assume every clause is there to protect them, not you.
Not always true though. Some templates are genuinely standard. But you can't tell which is which without someone reading it, so.
Ha. My first LLC operating agreement I 'wrote myself' by copying something off a forum. Took a lawyer fifteen minutes to find a contradiction that would have cost me my voting rights. Fifteen minutes. She charged me 90 bucks and I still think about that as one of the best purchases I ever made.
people always frame this as 'pay for advice upfront vs pay way more later', but nobody mentions the third option which is just not signing dumb things. read the clauses folks
That's a bit unhelpful. Some of us can't tell a dumb clau se from a normal one, that's why lawyers exist.
fair
OP, go see a lawyer now. Not to sue anyone, just to find out what your options actually are. Sometimes there's a renegotiation path or a gap in how they've been performing their side. Exclusivity clauses sometimes fall apart if the counterparty didn't hold up their end.
This. And ask specifically about 'material breach' by them - if they've slipped on anything, you might have leverage you don't know about.
Can I ask roughly what field you're in? Supplier terms in manufacturing vs say software can look totally different and it might change what's realistic.
Packaging supplies. And yes, I'm booking a consult. The exclusivity part is what worries me most because it limits who I can buy from and honestly their pricing has already crept up twice.
Pricing creeping up while you're locked in exclusivity. That's the clause biting already, whether or not you formally break anything.
Well. Book the consult, bring the pricing history. That's not legal advice, that's just sensible.