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Business Contracts and Commercial Agreements
The document you are about to sign is the one that decides the argument you have in two years.
What Contract Work Actually Involves
Commercial contract work covers the drafting, review, negotiation, and enforcement of the agreements a business runs on, with customers, suppliers, employees, landlords, and partners. Most of it happens before anything goes wrong, which is why it is the cheapest legal work a company can buy and the most commonly skipped.
A contract does two jobs. It records what everyone intends today, and it decides what happens on the day they disagree. Most agreements are written carefully for the first job and barely at all for the second, which is why the clause nobody read becomes the whole dispute.
We draft and review with the second job in mind, because we also litigate. Having watched what bad language does in front of a judge changes what you write.
Agreements We Handle
Sales and service agreements
Master agreements, statements of work, terms and conditions, and the payment and performance terms underneath them.
Supplier and vendor contracts
Supply agreements, distribution, logistics, and the risk allocation that decides who pays when something fails.
Licensing agreements
Technology, software, brand, and content licensing, including scope, territory, and termination.
Real estate agreements
Leases, build-to-suit, subleases, ground leases, purchase and sale.
NDAs and confidentiality
Mutual and one-way non-disclosure agreements, and the confidentiality terms inside larger deals.
Restrictive covenants
Non-compete, non-solicitation, and IP assignment terms (drafted to be enforceable in Alabama, which is not automatic).
Opinion letters
Formal legal opinions where a counterparty, lender, or investor requires one.
Reusable templates
Your recurring agreements built once, properly, so the next twenty do not need a lawyer at all.
Sound familiar?
How We Approach a Contract
Strategic Counsel
We start by asking what you are trying to achieve and what leverage you have. Some attorneys bleed all over a contract to make it maximally favourable. In the real world that is often not available, and burning a relationship over a clause you were never going to win is its own cost.
Negotiation
Advocating for the terms that genuinely protect you, and letting go of the ones that do not. Knowing which is which is most of the job.
Relationship Management
Contracts do not end at signature. We stay involved through performance (amendments, renewals, and the conversations that keep a dispute from forming).
Enforcement
When a counterparty does not perform, we already know the agreement and the history. That is a materially better starting position than handing a stranger a folder.
Who Does This Work
Jordan W Gerheim
Litigator and outside chief legal counsel. Drafts with an eye on what the clause looks like in a deposition.
Benjamin H. Kilborn, Jr.
Former in-house general counsel across four industries, and a University of Texas Law graduate who took A+ grades in Contract Law and Business Organizations.
Benjamin N. Kearns
Contract review, drafting, and negotiation alongside a litigation practice. The same person who would have to argue a bad clause reviews it first.
Can You Just Use AI for This?
For some things, yes, and people have been borrowing forms and pulling templates off the internet for decades. AI is a faster version of a thing businesses already did.
What it cannot give you is confidence that the output fits. Whether the clause is enforceable in Alabama. Whether it matches the deal you actually struck. Whether your industry is regulated in a way the model did not know about. Whether the indemnity you just accepted is normal for a contract this size, or wildly one-sided.
That is the part people come to a lawyer for, and it has not changed. Bring us the draft, reviewing something is faster and cheaper than starting from nothing.
How Contract Work Is Billed
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Frequently Asked Questions
How long does a contract review take?
Most standard commercial agreements come back within a few business days, and a straightforward review under ten pages is usually faster. If you are against a signing deadline, tell us in the first message. We can almost always work to it, but not if we learn about it afterwards.
Can you review a contract someone else drafted?
That is most of what we do. Reviewing the other side's draft is where the leverage question gets answered: what can you actually change, what should you fight for, and what is not worth the relationship. It is also faster and cheaper than starting from a blank page.
Are non-competes enforceable in Alabama?
Sometimes, and the drafting matters enormously. Alabama restricts restrictive covenants and courts examine scope, duration, geography, and the legitimate business interest being protected. A non-compete copied from another state's template frequently fails. We draft them to be enforced and we defend them when they are challenged.
What is the difference between reviewing a contract and negotiating one?
Review tells you what the document says and where the risk is. Negotiation is going back to the counterparty and changing it. Plenty of clients only want the first. They want to know what they are signing and then they sign it. That is a legitimate choice, and a cheaper one.
Can you build us a set of contracts we can reuse?
Yes, and for most businesses it is the highest-return legal project available. Your recurring agreements get built once, properly, with the variables clearly marked, after which most of them never need a lawyer again. Cornerstone Counsel includes a monthly project, and this is one of the most common ones clients pick.
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Send Us the Contract
Book a Risk-Free Strategy Session and send the document ahead. We will have read it before we speak, and you will leave knowing what you are signing.