I am not an attorney. In this situation, I'm a producer who enjoys court room dramas, worked for over a decade doing legislative advocacy and has read Crowell, Litwik, Donaldson and other entertainment lawyers hosted on my shelves. I have purchased two sets of templates from Litwik and another source that I use as a foundation for the contracts I draft.
I hope to execute a Writers Collaboration Agreement tomorrow (mostly boilerplate from the Litwik template by the same name), and have questions related to how I wrote two provisions of this contract. Each is intended to urge parties to sort out our conflicts among us without resort to the expense of arbitration; maybe to kick the can down the road with respect to a potential conflict in negotiating the terms of this agreement.
Those provisions read:
" . . . judgment upon the [arbitration] award rendered by the arbitrators may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof and located in the county of residence for the party to this agreement named
as a respondent in any application for arbitration."
"This agreement is governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the States of Georgia and Massachusettes and where those conflict then in the State of residence of the responding party to any dispute over its terms."
Not being an attorney, not knowing what I do not know, my question here is:
Am I unnecessarily complicating things here? Anyone here with experience in contract law who might weigh in? What unintended consequences am I inviting operating under these terms?
Thanks for your consideration.
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Pick one state where the agreement is "governed" to avoid differences in the way states handle legal matters. Since you are the producer, use your state. Arbitration is a result of both parties NOT being able to figure out, discuss, resolve an issue, disagreement. Usually before any arbitration or lawsuit can happen, one party must demonstrate that it tried to resolve the issue before taking legal action.
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Thanks for the second set of eyes on this, Mr. Hollingsworth! It is much appreciated. For clarity, I am both a presumptive producer for this non-yet-written screenplay and a party to the writers collaboration agreement intended to govern creation of that screenplay.
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If you are a producer, you should have an entertainment attorney already. I do not recommend putting anything together yourself. If you miss just one small thing, you can be screwed out of a lot by opening yourself up to litigation. A few dollars now can save you hundreds of thousands or more later if the film is a success. Oh, and heartache.
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Thank you Anthony Catino for sharing that information. I found an entertainment attorney before I did my first pitch; just in case. This is a "DOG EAT DOG BUSINESS". Everyone should be careful.