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💡 THE TIP
Staple a one-page plain-English summary to the front of every contract you send.
Every enterprise deal stalls in the same place: the customer’s lawyer gets the MSA, sees 30 pages of dense prose, and the deal disappears into the legal queue for two weeks. But here’s the thing: that lawyer is looking for the same 10 things every other lawyer looks for. Liability cap, payment terms, IP, data, and termination, among other things. The list barely changes from deal to deal.
So answer the questions before they’re asked. A one-pager at the front of the contract that’s written in plain English, readable by your AE, your champion, and their GC, collapses the review cycle. Your salespeople can talk through it on the call. Your champion can forward it to legal with confidence. And legal can scan it in 90 seconds instead of 90 minutes.
More than simply being a legal document, it’s a translation layer. Same answers, surfaced upfront.
✅ THE TO-DO
List the 10 questions a buyer’s lawyer asks every time (liability cap, indemnification, payment terms, term & renewal, IP, data rights, security, termination, SLAs, governing law). For each, write the answer from your standard MSA in one plain-English sentence with a section reference. That’s your template. Attach it to every contract you send going forward.
If you found this tip helpful, please share with a fellow b2b founder 😎
🤖 THE CLAUDE SKILL
Paste this into Claude with your contract and let it generate the one-pager for you.
You're helping me accelerate legal review on an enterprise contract. I'm going to give you a contract, and I want you to generate a one-page plain-English summary that I'll staple to the front of the document before sending it to the customer.
The audience is three people reading the same page: my AE, my customer champion, and the customer's lawyer. It needs to be readable by all three.
CONTRACT:
[PASTE CONTRACT OR ATTACH FILE]
DEAL CONTEXT (optional):
- Counterparty: [COMPANY NAME]
- ACV: [DOLLAR AMOUNT]
- Contract type: [MSA / order form / DPA / etc.]
Produce a markdown table answering the 10 questions every buyer's lawyer asks. Skip rows that genuinely don't apply.
| Question | Answer (plain English) | Section |
|---|---|---|
| How long is the term and how does it renew? | | |
| What are the payment terms? | | |
| What's the liability cap? | | |
| Who indemnifies whom, and for what? | | |
| Who owns the IP? | | |
| What are the data rights and security commitments? | | |
| How can either party terminate? | | |
| What are the SLAs and remedies if we miss them? | | |
| What's the governing law and dispute process? | | |
| Anything unusual or non-standard? | | |
Rules:
- Translate, don't paraphrase. "Indemnify and hold harmless" becomes "we pay their legal costs if a third party sues them because of our software."
- Use numbers wherever possible: dollars, days, percentages.
- Below the table, add a "⚠️ Watch-outs" section flagging anything aggressive, non-standard, or likely to trigger redlines.
- If a term is silent in the contract, say "Not addressed" — don't infer.Do you have a GTM protip? Send our way here to feature in an future issue! If you try any of these tips and found them helpful, let us know - we’d love to hear from you.