Contract Drafting Services
Custom contracts drafted by qualified lawyers, built for your specific deal, not pulled from a template. For businesses and founders in India and worldwide. From $99, delivered in 24 to 48 hours.
What is contract drafting?
Contract drafting is the process of writing a legally enforceable agreement tailored to a specific deal: the parties, the money, the risks, and the jurisdiction whose law governs it. It differs from using a template, which fills generic blanks, and from contract review, which examines a document someone else wrote. A properly drafted contract defines each party’s obligations, allocates risk through clauses like liability caps and indemnities, and sets out what happens when things go wrong, in terms a court in the governing jurisdiction will actually enforce.
Written and reviewed by Prakhar Rai, Advocate, Bar Council of India · Last updated July 2026
Get a fixed-fee quote in under 2 hours.
Tell me about your deal, the counterparty, and where you are. I will assess what the contract needs to cover and come back with a precise quote and timeline. No obligation, no automated replies.
Standard contracts drafted in 24 to 48 hours. Complex cross-border work in 3 to 5 days.
Or reach us directly
WhatsApp +91 8004800100 · contact@mylegalpal.com
WhatsApp +91 8004800100 · contact@mylegalpal.com
India
United States
United Kingdom
UAE
European Union
Canada
Australia
Singapore and APAC
The contract you regret is usually the one that looked fine.
Most contract problems are not obvious at signing. The document that costs you later is rarely the one that was clearly wrong. It is the one that was almost right. A missing liability cap. An undefined term. A jurisdiction picked out of habit. A payment clause that leaves room for delay without any consequence.
Here is the version I see most. A founder needs a contract, money is tight, and there is a free template online or an AI tool that produces one in seconds. It reads well. It gets signed. Then the deal goes sideways, and the one clause that would have protected them is the clause the template left out. The document did its narrow job. It just was not built for their situation, and they found that out at the worst possible moment.
A template gives you a document. It does not give you an agreement. The thinking about your specific deal is the part that matters, and a template skips exactly that.
| Lawyer-drafted | Template | AI-generated | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built for your specific deal | Yes | No | Partially, unverified |
| Jurisdiction-correct | Yes | Rarely | Often wrong |
| Professionally accountable | Yes | No | No |
| Negotiation support | Yes | No | No |
| Cost | From $99 | Free to $50 | Free |
| Where it fails | — | The clause your deal needed but the template lacked | Clauses that read well and don’t hold up |
That is what contract drafting services are actually for. Not to produce a file, but to think through your deal before it is expensive to get wrong. My Legal Pal drafts contracts for businesses, startups, founders, and freelancers in India and across the US, UK, UAE, Australia, and APAC. Every contract is drafted by a qualified lawyer with experience in that agreement type and that jurisdiction. Fixed fees, no billable hours, standard contracts in 24 to 48 hours.
Three mistakes I see again and again.
Different clients, same few errors. None of them looked like a problem on the day the contract was signed.
The template that was almost right
A contract copied from a template or generated by AI, missing the one clause that mattered, the liability cap, the IP assignment, the termination terms. It works until the moment you need the missing piece, and then it does not.
The IP that was never actually yours
A pattern I see often: a startup commissions a developer or designer without an IP assignment clause. Months later, when they raise money or bring in a second developer, the question of who owns the original code or design becomes a real dispute. In many places, without a proper present-tense assignment, the IP legally stays with the person who made it, not the company that paid for it. Investors find this in diligence, and it can stall a round.
The one-sided draft signed under pressure
A founder receives a client’s or vendor’s contract, is in a hurry to close, and signs it as written. Later they discover the payment terms, the liability, or the exit clause were all stacked in the other side’s favour. The time to catch that is before signing, not after.
None of these are exotic. They are ordinary, common, and expensive, and every one of them is avoidable with a contract drafted for your actual deal.
How it works
From brief to final draft, with a lawyer review at every stage.
Brief and discovery
A real conversation about your deal, the counterparty, the jurisdiction, and your priorities.
Drafting by a lawyer
Drafted by a qualified lawyer with experience in this contract type and jurisdiction, not a template engine.
Internal review
A second review for legal accuracy, commercial fit, and enforceability before it reaches you.
Delivery with summary
A plain-language walkthrough of the key clauses and where the other side may push back.
Revisions
Adjusted until the contract says exactly what you need.
Finalisation
Final draft ready for signing. Negotiation support available if you want it.
Who we draft for.
The same engagement works differently depending on where you sit. Here is what it looks like for each.
Founders and startups
Founders’ agreements, SAFEs, ESOP documents, and the client contracts your revenue depends on, drafted to survive investor diligence. Most of our startup work begins with one urgent contract and becomes ongoing retainer support.
Freelancers and consultants
A service agreement with payment terms that have teeth, IP terms that match what you actually sold, and scope language that prevents free work.
Small and mid-size businesses
Vendor, employment, and distribution contracts, standardized so every new deal does not start from a blank page.
In-house and legal teams
Overflow drafting at fixed fees when volume spikes, in your playbook and your house style.
Which contract do you need?
What it covers, the typical timeline, and what comes next, for the contracts we draft most often.
Mutual or unilateral. Protects confidential information shared during early discussions, investor conversations, or vendor diligence. Delivered in 24 to 48 hours.
For B2B services. Scope, deliverables, payment terms, liability, and termination, so both sides know exactly what they agreed to. Delivered in 24 to 48 hours.
Governance, exit mechanics, transfer restrictions, drag-along and tag-along rights, and reserved matters for companies with multiple shareholders. Typically 3 to 5 days.
Early-stage fundraising instruments with valuation cap, discount, and conversion mechanics drafted to match what investors expect to see. Delivered in 24 to 48 hours.
Vesting, IP assignment, roles, decision-making, and exit terms between co-founders. The most commonly missed document in early-stage startups. Typically 3 to 5 days.
Jurisdiction-aware drafting covering role, compensation, confidentiality, IP assignment, and properly scoped restrictive covenants. Delivered in 24 to 48 hours.
B2B or B2C software terms covering licence scope, service levels, data handling, liability, and termination, aligned with your pricing model. Delivered in 24 to 48 hours.
Drafted for GDPR, UK GDPR, India’s DPDPA, and CCPA as applicable, covering processor obligations, sub-processing, security, and data subject rights. Delivered in 24 to 48 hours.
For freelancers and consultants, covering scope, payment, IP assignment, and the classification language that avoids misclassification risk. Delivered in 24 to 48 hours.
The most overlooked startup document. A present-tense assignment of IP created by founders, employees, and contractors, including future-created work. Delivered in 24 to 48 hours.
Multi-party governance, contribution, profit-sharing, and exit terms for joint ventures and strategic partnerships. Typically 3 to 5 days.
Territory, exclusivity, pricing, minimum commitments, and termination for distribution and reseller relationships. Typically 3 to 5 days.
Contract drafting pricing.
Fixed fees, agreed before any work begins. No billable hours, no surprise invoices. The bands below are starting points; your exact quote depends on the contract and its complexity, and you get it in under two hours.
| Tier | Contracts | Fixed fee | Turnaround |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | NDAs, independent contractor, simple service agreements | From $99 | 24–48 hours |
| Business | MSAs, employment contracts, SaaS terms, DPAs | From $179 | 24–48 hours |
| Complex / multi-party | Shareholders’, founders’, joint ventures, cross-border | From $249 | 3–5 days |
Every fee includes the drafting, an internal review, revisions until you are satisfied, and a plain-language summary of what you are signing.
You are not hiring a document. You are gaining a legal partner.
Most contract drafting services hand you a file and disappear. You get the PDF, they get paid, and the next time you need something legal you are starting over with a stranger who knows nothing about your business.
That is not how I work. When you come to me for a contract, I learn your business from day one. So when the next thing comes up, and it will, a client agreement to review, a hire to paper, a term sheet to negotiate, a trademark to protect, you are not explaining your company from scratch. You are talking to someone who already understands it.
Your legal needs grow as your business grows. Instead of finding a different lawyer for every issue and re-explaining yourself each time, you have one person who has been there since the start. That continuity is worth more than any single contract, because it means your legal support keeps pace with your business rather than always catching up to it.
Drafted for the jurisdiction that governs the deal.
A contract that works in Delaware is not automatically right for a company in Singapore. Employment terms written for the UK can fail requirements that apply to an Indian employee. Where a contract is governed decides what it needs to say to actually hold.
India
Our home base. We draft across the Indian Contract Act, the Companies Act, FEMA’s foreign investment rules, the DPDPA, and the sector rules for fintech, edtech, and healthtech. One thing worth knowing: under Section 27 of the Indian Contract Act, most post-employment non-competes are unenforceable, so we protect you with confidentiality and IP assignment instead. Coverage across every major Indian city.
United States
US contracts carry their own expectations: at-will employment, Delaware standards for investor documents, UCC considerations, and state-by-state differences in non-compete enforceability. See our contract lawyers in the USA for how remote, fixed-fee US work runs.
Canada
One country, two systems: the common law provinces and Quebec’s civil code, which treats formation and remedies differently. Cross-border work with US counterparties is routine here, and if the deal touches Quebec the drafting has to account for it, sometimes in both languages. More on our contract lawyers in Canada page.
United Kingdom
Post-Brexit, UK contracts need care around what EU law was retained and what has diverged, plus UK GDPR, English law implied terms, and Companies House compliance for shareholder documents. Our contract lawyers in London page covers UK engagements.
European Union
There is no single EU contract law. You choose one member state’s law under the Rome I rules, with EU-wide regimes layered on top: commercial agents can be owed compensation on termination regardless of what the contract says, consumer-facing terms face unfairness review, and data clauses have to work with GDPR. We draft with the specific member state and these overlays in mind. See our contract lawyers in the EU page.
UAE and the GCC
The UAE runs federal civil law alongside the common law jurisdictions of DIFC and ADGM, each with its own courts. A contract meant for DIFC is drafted differently from one under onshore UAE law. We work across both; see our contract lawyers in Dubai page.
Australia
Australian Consumer Law creates protections you cannot exclude by inserting a contrary clause, and Fair Work obligations shape employment contracts differently from the UK or India. Our contract lawyers in Melbourne page covers Australian work.
Singapore and APAC
Singapore is a frequent governing-law and arbitration seat for APAC joint ventures, holding structures, and distribution deals. We also handle Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia for regional expansion. Start with our contract lawyers in Singapore page.
Contract drafting for your industry.
The industry shapes what a contract has to say. A fintech contract carries different regulatory weight from an e-commerce one; a SaaS agreement differs from a manufacturing supply contract.
Technology and SaaS
SaaS subscriptions, API licensing, software development contracts, white-label agreements, technology MSAs, and data processing agreements for GDPR, UK GDPR, DPDPA, and CCPA.
Fintech and financial services
Payment service agreements, lending platform contracts, partner bank agreements, and compliance documentation under RBI, FEMA, and equivalent frameworks.
E-commerce and retail
Vendor and marketplace seller agreements, distribution contracts, platform terms, privacy policies, and consumer protection compliance.
Healthcare and healthtech
Telemedicine service agreements, healthtech platform terms, HIPAA business associate agreements in the US, and DPDPA-compliant data handling in India.
Real estate and construction
Development agreements, construction contracts, joint development agreements, lease deeds, and sale and purchase agreements with proper stamping and registration.
Media and the creator economy
Influencer and content licensing agreements, talent and production contracts, and IP assignment and usage rights for content marketplaces.
Startups and venture-backed businesses
Founders’ agreements, SAFEs and convertible notes, term sheets, shareholders’ agreements, ESOP documents, and Series A to C paperwork.
What makes a contract actually hold up
The clauses most often missing from template contracts. Tap to expand each.
01
A limitation of liability that survives scrutiny
+
“Neither party shall be liable for any damages.” Often too broad to enforce.
A cap tied to the contract value, such as the fees paid in the preceding twelve months, with carve-outs for IP infringement, breach of confidentiality, and indemnities.
02
IP assignment that actually transfers ownership
+
Without a present-tense assignment and coverage of future-created work, ownership of code, designs, or content made by a contractor can legally stay with the creator. The most expensive omission in technology contracts.
03
Payment terms with teeth
+
“Payment to be made within reasonable time.”
“Payment due 30 days from invoice. Interest at 1.5% per month on overdue amounts. Service may be suspended after 45 days.”
04
Restrictive covenants that are actually enforceable
+
Over-broad non-competes get struck down as restraints on trade. The enforceable version is narrow: a defined geography, a limited duration, and a clear scope. A clause that tries to ban everything usually bans nothing.
05
Governing law and dispute resolution chosen on purpose
+
The boilerplate jurisdiction clause copied from a template can force you to litigate in a country where you have no presence. Choice of law and dispute mechanism should be deliberate decisions matched to enforceability, cost, and where the risk actually sits.
What clients say
We came in with an AI-generated MSA that our US client’s legal team had already flagged. It got rebuilt properly and cleared their review the second time round.
The thing I did not expect was being asked questions I had not thought about. The founders’ agreement covered situations I would never have put in a template.
Our SAFE round closed without the usual back and forth because the drafting already answered what the investors asked. Worth more than the fee.
We needed shareholder documents for a DIFC holding company. They knew the DIFC and onshore difference without us having to explain it.
Kept coming back for the next contract, and the next. Not having to re-explain the business every time is the actual value.
A distribution deal across three countries with different governing law. They handled the complexity and still kept the document readable.
We came in with an AI-generated MSA that our US client’s legal team had already flagged. It got rebuilt properly and cleared their review the second time round.
The thing I did not expect was being asked questions I had not thought about. The founders’ agreement covered situations I would never have put in a template.
Our SAFE round closed without the usual back and forth because the drafting already answered what the investors asked. Worth more than the fee.
We needed shareholder documents for a DIFC holding company. They knew the DIFC and onshore difference without us having to explain it.
Kept coming back for the next contract, and the next. Not having to re-explain the business every time is the actual value.
A distribution deal across three countries with different governing law. They handled the complexity and still kept the document readable.
Frequently asked questions about contract drafting services
What types of contracts do you draft?
NDAs, master service agreements, shareholders’ and founders’ agreements, SAFEs and convertible notes, employment and independent contractor agreements, SaaS terms, data processing agreements, IP assignments, distribution and reseller agreements, joint ventures, and bespoke commercial contracts. If it is a contract, we most likely draft it.
How much does contract drafting cost?
Fixed fees, starting at $99 for standard contracts like NDAs and contractor agreements, $179 for business contracts like MSAs and SaaS terms, and $249 for complex or multi-party work like shareholders’ and founders’ agreements. Your exact quote depends on the contract, and you get it in under two hours.
How long does drafting take?
Standard contracts are usually delivered in 24 to 48 hours. Complex documents like shareholders’ agreements, joint ventures, and multi-jurisdictional contracts take 3 to 5 business days. Urgent turnaround is available.
Can you draft contracts governed by foreign law?
Yes. We regularly draft under US, English, Singapore, UAE, and Australian law, as well as multi-jurisdictional contracts with the right governing law and dispute resolution clauses. We advise on the best choice of law for the parties and the deal.
Why not just use a template or an AI tool?
A template does not know your business, so it fills generic blanks and skips the clauses specific to your deal. Those gaps usually surface at the worst moment, in a dispute or during diligence. A drafted contract does the thinking a template leaves out.
Do you also review existing contracts?
Yes. We review a counterparty’s draft, flag the risks, suggest revisions in tracked changes, and explain what you would actually be agreeing to before you sign.
Who actually drafts the contract?
A qualified lawyer with experience in the relevant contract type and jurisdiction, not a paralegal or a template engine. Every draft goes through a second internal review before it reaches you.
Are your services available globally?
Yes. We serve clients in India and across the US, UK, UAE, Singapore, Australia, and the wider APAC region. Cross-border and multi-jurisdictional drafting is a core part of the practice.
What are contract drafting charges in India?
For India-governed contracts, our fixed fees start at the equivalent of $99 (billed in INR) for standard agreements like NDAs and contractor agreements, with business contracts and multi-party documents priced higher. Every quote is fixed before work begins, and Indian clients receive GST-compliant invoices.
Can I draft a contract myself?
Legally, yes: a self-drafted contract can be binding. The risk is not validity but coverage. Self-drafted and template contracts tend to fail on the clauses you did not know to include: liability caps, IP assignment, termination mechanics, and a workable dispute-resolution clause. For low-stakes agreements, drafting it yourself is reasonable. When real money, IP, or equity is involved, the fee is small insurance.
What is the difference between contract drafting and contract review?
Drafting means we write the agreement from your deal terms. Review means the other side wrote it and we examine it for risks before you sign, with revisions in tracked changes. If you received a contract from a counterparty, you need contract review; if you need the document to exist, you need drafting.
