You achieve your business objectives through your commercial agreements. If you want high quality outcomes, make sure you use high quality documents.
Off-the-shelf or “standard” legal documents may appear convenient and cost-effective at first glance. However, for many they do not actually achieve the outcome the business requires nor needs. This is because legal documents are not merely administrative templates. They are legal tools that must be selected, drafted and implemented with a clear understanding of the client’s circumstances, objectives and legal obligations.
There are several reasons why standard documents often fall short, including but nit limited to:
- A large component of legal advice deals with selecting the correct document in the first place. If you start with the wrong “standard” document you will not achieve your desired result – no matter how well drafted the document. Using the wrong document can create a false sense of security. A business may believe it is protected, only to discover later that the document does not address the actual risk.
- For example, a Non-Disclosure Agreement is not an appropriate document to protect your company’s intellectual property from former employees.
- The law changes and develops frequently so most “standard” documents were written before the majority of current tax, investment, corporate, commercial, insolvency and family laws were passed. The changes that have occurred in tax, corporate, insolvency and family law in the past 10 years is unprecedented, and affects almost all legal documentation. Therefore, a document that was appropriate several years ago may now create unintended consequences or fail to address current statutory requirements, regulatory obligations.
- Most “standard” documents are not well written as they are designed to be broad and generic. They have not been written with the subtleties of various tax and investment laws in mind. These issues may not be obvious when the document is first signed, but the defects will become clear once it is to late.
- For example, most standard Buy-Sell Deeds trigger a CGT liability when they are first signed, as opposed to when the Exit Event is triggered. Most Partnership Agreements do not take into account the fact that tax laws treat partnership CGT asset differently to other assets. Most standard loan agreements do not properly deal with offsets and the preservation of security.
When implementing legal advice, we use our technical expertise to prepare documents that are tailored to the client’s circumstances, priorities and objectives. The purpose is not merely to produce a document, but to ensure that the document achieves the intended legal and commercial outcome.
Please call us on 1300 654 590 or email us to discuss how we can assist.
The information contained in this post is current at the date of editing – 10 June 2026.
