A consulting contract is a type of services agreement. A consultancy or consultant will typically be appointed by a client to provide professional advice and support, and may also be contracted to produce documents, software or other deliverables.

One of the key issues in any consultancy contract under which deliverables are being produced is the ownership of intellectual property rights in the deliverables. These rights may be retained by the consultant, or assigned by the consultant to the client, or licensed by the consultant to the client. Where the intellectual property rights are licensed to the client, it will be important for both parties to ensure that the license is both suitable and certain in scope.

The consultant will want to ensure that the client pays his bills on time. Accordingly, this template consulting agreement includes provisions concerning the late payment of fees.

The client will be concerned to ensure that the consulting services are delivered to a good standard and on time. This template includes specific provisions about the manner and time of service delivery.

The consulting agreement form's key provisions are as follows:

• Definition of "deliverables": what if anything will the consultant deliver to the client during the course of the project or engagement?
• Intellectual property rights: which party will own the IPR in the deliverables, and will any licenses be granted?
• Schedule: what services will be provided, and what timetable will they be subject to?

A full listing of the section titles in the consulting contract is as follows: (1) Definitions and interpretation, (2) Engagement, (3) Duties of the Consultant, (4) Charges, (5) Intellectual Property Rights, (6) Warranties, (7) Limitations and exclusions of liability, (8) Termination, (9) Effects of termination, (10) Confidentiality and (11) General.

The agreement is 8 pages long. Upon purchase, a download link for the document will be delivered to you by email in MS Word (.doc) format.

The first few sections of this document can be seen free-of-charge here: precedent consulting agreement