New Employment Contract Review
Senior executives are often presented with new contracts, either by a potential new employer or by their existing employer, where they have been offered a promotion or where an employer is trying to get all staff onto new format contracts. Such new contracts can contain complex terms that can impact dramatically their responsibilities, remuneration, and career progression for years to come.
Before you sign such a new contract, it is essential to understand exactly what each clause means and how it may affect your future and to what extent you can try to negotiate such terms.
A new employment contract or service agreement lays the legal groundwork governing your position, responsibilities, and compensation. For senior executives, those documents frequently include a variety of detailed provisions that not only define the start of the role but also influence the circumstances in which it may end.
Examining the contractual terms before signing helps you know what you are signing up to so that there are no nasty surprises later. Many clients that David helps experience issues because they failed to get legal advice on their original employment contracts or service agreements before signing them.
Common areas requiring careful attention include: restrictive covenants; bonus and commission plans; share options; notice periods; garden leave provisions; post-termination confidentiality clauses; and termination bonuses. The clearer your understanding of these points, the stronger your position when negotiating terms and planning your future career.
Fully understanding your new contract helps you make informed choices, avoid surprises later, and helps you to negotiate for any essential changes. A comprehensive contract review provides you with peace of mind as you start your new position.
What Is an Employment Contract or Service Agreement Review?
An executive employment contract or service agreement review is a detailed assessment of the terms you are being asked to accept before taking up a senior role. These can be extensive contracts with clauses that have significant future financial and professional ramifications. A review helps you understand key terms, recognise risks and ensure the agreement reflects your expectations.
Many executives only become aware of these issues once their role is underway or when they come to leave, including bonus disputes, overly restrictive covenants, unclear performance expectations, and disadvantageous termination provisions. If the terms are discussed upfront, it can help avoid these problems later and give the employer certainty about what is expected.
Ambiguous or lopsided clauses can hinder career advancement, diminish your earnings potential, and curtail negotiating leverage in exit scenarios. Get strategic advice early as soon as you get your new contract is key.
These reviews typically focus on several key areas, including:
Salary & bonus structures
Notice period & termination
Share options & incentives
Confidentiality obligations
Bonus withheld on notice, dismissal and exit
How to negotiate
How Can David Help With Your Contract Review?
David advises senior executives on the terms of their new contracts in a transparent and commercially driven way.
You get a comprehensive analysis of the agreement by David and he will then take you through key provisions explaining their implications, and any suggested changes to request in clear, practical terms. He identifies risks that may restrict your options, affect future earnings, or place undue obligations on you.
David also reviews bonus, commission and incentive plans to ensure they are appropriate for your sector and drafted in a way that preserves your entitlements. He also scrutinises any restrictive covenants to ensure they are reasonable and not likely to unreasonably prevent future career changes.
He consults on negotiation tactics, helping you so that when you negotiate terms with a potential employer, your position is as strong as possible but done in such a way that the new employer will consider your requests in good faith.
David also highlights risks hidden within termination clauses, notice provisions, and garden leave terms. His focus is to ensure your contract reflects your career path and future goals.
Executives commonly encounter issues such as:
Hidden contract risks
Restrictive clauses
Negotiation leverage
Before signing a senior contract, make sure you fully understand its implications. For clear, commercially focused advice that protects your long-term interests, contact David today.
Why Choose David for Your
Executive Contract Review
With over 35 years’ experience advising senior executives, David brings clarity and strategic guidance to complex employment contracts. He identifies clauses that may restrict future opportunities, affect pay structures, or place unreasonable obligations on you, and explains their commercial impact in clear, practical terms.
David is skilled at strengthening negotiation positions and ensuring contracts reflect an executive’s responsibilities and long-term career goals. Clients value his calm, insightful approach and his ability to turn dense legal documents into straightforward, actionable advice.