Tag Archives: client
Risk Assessment for Web Designers
Anyone working in a design-orientated field or industry will already have a feel for how complicated it can be.
As the saying goes, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and one persons preferences can be very different to anothers.
It is often the case that differences of opinion arise, with neither party actually being wrong but having very different opinions about how something should appear.
Therefore anyone looking to go it alone in a creative field needs to have a fairly thick skin.
This is certainly true for web designers where, in a sense, the final artwork is the public domain and out there for all to see. There really is no hiding place.
If the website is the perfect blend of form and function, the client will be rewarded with lots of web traffic and potential sales. However, this very public appraisal of work, can be a double edged sword and a website that does not produce the expected results could be highly criticised.
A website designer is able to define how a website looks, how it feels, how it works and what it contains. There is a lot of pressure riding on the designer – particularly if they are operating as a freelancer, sole trader or small business.
So, because the very nature of a web designers work involves opening up their work to the great unknown, it makes sense to do some basic risk assessment with every contract. After all, every designer is only human and unintentional mistakes can happen. A good basic rule of thumb is, if I do something wrong, whats the worst case scenario for my client. And what can I do about it?
Breaking the contract down in to smaller component parts will also help with the risk assessment:
1. Who is the website for? What sort of business is my client in? How big a player is my client?
If it is possible, the designer should ask the client for examples of websites they like in general and also some examples of competitors sites before any work begins.
2. Will the website use content from third parties (like images, music, video)?
The designer should make sure they have suitable written licences from the media owners (and this should be saved somewhere for future reference.)
3. Exactly what is included in the contract for a new website?
The designer should be extremely clear about what is included, be that domain registration, hosting, design, maintenance. A client may believe that they are paying for ongoing support which can be a time consuming exercise for the designer, unless costs are calculated up front.
4. Considering the deadlines and scale of the job, will the designer need to use a subcontractor to help and if so, do they have professional indemnity insurance?
Bringing other people on board has the potential to increase risk as there is more potential for mistakes to be made.
5. What sign off procedure, if any, is in place?
Experienced designers know all too well that the closer a website gets to launch date, the more people get involved on the client side. To protect the designer, it is essential to have a well thought-out sign off procedure in place, otherwise the design by committee factor may well take its toll on the whole project with massive delays or changes in strategy.
As well as reviewing all of the above points, all web designers should ensure that they have professional indemnity insurance in place. The policy helps web designers that find themselves in dispute with a client. It covers the legal expenses involved in defending any allegations or claims made against the designer, and also covers any compensation or damages that may have to be paid.
The most common kinds of claims made against web designers are for copyright infringement and unintentional breach of contract. Unfortunately if things do start to go wrong, clients tend to sue first and ask questions later. It is not particularly pleasant thinking the potential worst of clients, but at least with a risk assessment undertaken and professional indemnity insurance in place, a web designer can be fully prepared.
Outsourcing Managed Document Review
Managed document review can aid you in your discovery process prior to a trial. As opposed to the discovery process after a trial, of course. Discovery is a critical part of any legal case, but in large corporate or class action cases, discovery can be extremely involved. If Bill Gates or Warren Buffet happen to be your client, cost isn’t an issue, but most of us aren’t fortunate enough to represent individuals with bottomless pockets. Inevitably the question arises, should you cut cost on discovery and allocate more resources to trying cases.
Cutting costs on discovery seems stupid, at least superficially. A single key piece of evidence can be the difference in a trial. Overlooking that piece of evidence can be catastrophic.
One problem in huge cases is that there are so many documents to assay that it is impossible to do if the client is billed at standard attorney rates.
Enter the managed document review process. You farm the task of reviewing documents to a third party source which bills at much lower rates. You specify parameters telling them exactly what they are looking for and what can be ignored. They separate the wheat from the chafe, leaving a much smaller pool of documents for you or your legal staff to review.
Managed document review is not infallible. If you are worried about extremely sensitive disclosures which may be highly damaging to a client, letting third parties examine documents is unwise. Smart reviewers must be used, but the smart the reviewers, the higher the cost.
For specialized subjects like science or accounting, cheap managed review is sometimes not possible. This is because only highly paid experts can even understand the documents. There is a duality in this situation. As even a lawyer can’t understand such documents, managed review by experts must be used.
There are document review companies in nations like India, where highly educated individuals accept low wages Americans never would. This can be a good option, but if be aware that if documents have not been scanned, then they must be shipped, which can be risky. Transferring documents electronically is far preferable.
More and more, converting documents to computerized files is preferred. High speed scanners rapidly convert documents into computer files, and then OCR is run. OCR stands for optical character recognition software, and it converts scanned images into readable text. Documents must still be read, but searches of documents using keywords is still very helpful.
Some lawyers view managed document review as a profit drain, and figure it is better to just have staff review documents and bill the client. A markup can be charged for the service. Also, the client doesn’t have to be told the task was farmed out, and can be unwittingly billed at standard legal prices.
Outsourcing Managed Document Review
Managed document review can aid you in your discovery process prior to a trial. As opposed to the discovery process after a trial, of course. Discovery is a critical part of any legal case, but in large corporate or class action cases, discovery can be extremely involved. If Bill Gates or Warren Buffet happen to be your client, cost isn’t an issue, but most of us aren’t fortunate enough to represent individuals with bottomless pockets. Inevitably the question arises, should you cut cost on discovery and allocate more resources to trying cases.
Cutting costs on discovery seems stupid, at least superficially. A single key piece of evidence can be the difference in a trial. Overlooking that piece of evidence can be catastrophic.
One problem in huge cases is that there are so many documents to assay that it is impossible to do if the client is billed at standard attorney rates.
Enter the managed document review process. You farm the task of reviewing documents to a third party source which bills at much lower rates. You specify parameters telling them exactly what they are looking for and what can be ignored. They separate the wheat from the chafe, leaving a much smaller pool of documents for you or your legal staff to review.
Managed document review is not infallible. If you are worried about extremely sensitive disclosures which may be highly damaging to a client, letting third parties examine documents is unwise. Smart reviewers must be used, but the smart the reviewers, the higher the cost.
For specialized subjects like science or accounting, cheap managed review is sometimes not possible. This is because only highly paid experts can even understand the documents. There is a duality in this situation. As even a lawyer can’t understand such documents, managed review by experts must be used.
There are document review companies in nations like India, where highly educated individuals accept low wages Americans never would. This can be a good option, but if be aware that if documents have not been scanned, then they must be shipped, which can be risky. Transferring documents electronically is far preferable.
More and more, converting documents to computerized files is preferred. High speed scanners rapidly convert documents into computer files, and then OCR is run. OCR stands for optical character recognition software, and it converts scanned images into readable text. Documents must still be read, but searches of documents using keywords is still very helpful.
Some lawyers view managed document review as a profit drain, and figure it is better to just have staff review documents and bill the client. A markup can be charged for the service. Also, the client doesn’t have to be told the task was farmed out, and can be unwittingly billed at standard legal prices.