Hamilton Pratt

New Franchisors - Franchise Agreement

We believe that there are no good franchisors with poor franchise agreements!  We also believe that many lawyers are able to draft agreements which fully protect a franchisor and some lawyers are able to prepare franchise agreements which won't put off prospective franchisees - if you don't think this is important just talk to franchisors about the cost of recruiting franchisees - but the real skill is to do both, protect the franchisor and not put off prospective franchisees – that is what we do.   

Uniquely we have developed a process for preparing a franchise agreement which reduces the amount of time a franchisor's management team devotes to the task but which ensures that the management team focuses on the important issues.

  • Franchise agreement checklist - with over twenty five years of experience in preparing franchise agreements, we have developed a detailed checklist which raises all the issues which need to be established for a first draft agreement to be prepared. 
  • Our franchisor client completes as much of the checklist which is relevant to his particular franchise as he can.  Often franchisors will struggle with some of the questions - that is quite normal - and where necessary we explain what the  question is getting at.  The checklist is then returned to us.
  • First draft - we then, based on the checklist, prepare the first draft of our franchisor client’s standard franchise agreement with a detailed letter of advice setting out any concerns and uncertainties, areas where we have not followed the checklist and additional issues which need to be considered. 
  • Our franchisor client then considers the draft agreement and our advice. 
  • We meet (sometimes this can be done over the telephone) to go through the agreement and agree any amendments. 
  • Normally a final agreed draft is achieved after the third draft. 

Our fixed price quote for the preparation of a franchise is based on the procedure set out above.  You don’t have to spend days in meetings with your lawyers and you do not commit to large unquantified legal bills.