# Legal Help



## razorlips00 (Feb 20, 2015)

Hello everyone, I just recently joined this forum so please excuse me if I'm not putting this in the right place, but it seemed the best fit after doing some scanning.

Anyways, I'm working for an author and he has decided he wants to work with a second party to write and publish this partie's story. We don't know the first thing about the legal issues involved. Our first concern is having legal rights to use whatever he sends us. After googling for thirty minutes I'm just stumped on what exactly to search for. I entered 'author release form' and a whole lot of other things, but I found mostly copyright stuff which of course isn't helpful. If anyone can point me in the correct direction with either search terms or actual links that would be most appreciated.

And, if you can give us any insight on other things we should be covering to make sure everything is honky dory with the law, that would be helpful as well.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and for any assistance in advance.


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## stevesh (Feb 21, 2015)

The only meaningful assistance you're likely to get here is this: pay a lawyer to advise you.


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## shadowwalker (Feb 21, 2015)

Agree - contact a literary attorney and get it right. Asking for legal advice on a writer's forum is like asking your dentist how to install a toilet.


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## LeeC (Feb 21, 2015)

There's another dimension to all this, in that needing a lawyer may be a red flag, though better than not if going ahead.

Many years back the offer of a consulting partnership was extended me by a silver spoon dude with a lot of contacts. Seemingly an ideal situation, but nagging in my mind was how I would be the worker bee technical end while he would be the self-ordained directing royalty, I sought the advice of a lawyer. 

The lawyer, it turned out, gave me some sage advice. He told me that he could write a partnership agreement that would sober the layman, but not necessarily another lawyer if a dispute evolved. That is, a partnership only works if all parties truly want it to work as envisioned. The point being that nothing more than an agreed upon defined exchange of specific goods and services could be defended in court, and not even then if the other lawyer could portray the dispute as diverging from the specifics. Sobering me was that he added, an opposing lawyer's worth was his ability to do just that. 

Long story short, I opted to stay independent and be paid by the job, or milestones within a larger job. 

This all puts me in mind of a reasonably wealthy executive I knew that divorced his wife because he fell in "love" with his executive assistant. On the advice of his lawyer, a prenuptial agreement was drawn up for the new pairing. The executive assistant's response was that if he really loved her no prenuptial agreement was necessary. Not always the case, but he caved and after a few years she tired of the marriage for whatever reason and took him to the cleaners. 

So in all, the tribal elder said be wary of subjective decisions as in each of us there are two wolves warring, one is jealousy, greed, and ego; the other is tolerance, well-meaning, and wisdom. The one that wins is the one we feed.


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## razorlips00 (Feb 21, 2015)

I appreciate the help, LeeC. The boss and I are both wanting to err on the side of caution with this one, of course. I was just always of the mind that with the age we live in there's always a way to get information free. I didn't want to have to go to a lawyer since most of them have consultation fees, but after researching to the best of my abilities yesterday I just couldn't find much of anything that answered our questions. So, yes, we will be going to seek legal aid from a professional.

However, if anyone else has something they'd like to add to this thread please feel free. Sure wouldn't hurt and you never know, you might have something we and whatever lawyer we go to misses.


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## DB17 (Feb 21, 2015)

shadowwalker said:


> Agree - contact a literary attorney and get it right. Asking for legal advice on a writer's forum is like asking your dentist how to install a toilet.



Very good advice. An attorney with publishing law experience is the best place to start actually.


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## dither (Feb 22, 2015)

You know what?
The thought that i might someday write something of interest scares the crap out of me for the very reason you have posted.


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