Is there a standard NDA form that can be modified per company (i.e. free) or do you have to go to a lawyer to get a custom one drawn up?

It is feasible to use publicly available templates and edit them yourself. You are opening yourself up to all sorts of problems by doing that.

Ideally you'd ask your lawyer to draft you a template that you edit to change company names and location to suit specific business dealings. In some situations, the other party might also have its own template they propose. Invariably you need a lawyer to either make you a template or revise templates from others.

-cb

There are boiler plate documents but they generally aren't very useful. The are freely available through [google].

Although to be honest, NDAs are mostly useless documents anyway. [oh] Somebody who is trustworthy won't reveal anything if you simply ask them not to. If somebody is going to reveal your information, they will either do it on accident, or do it intentionally and disregard the NDA.

If you ever try to legally enforce your NDA (which very rarely happens) it will end up costing from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand dollars, depending on if they put up a fight. Enforcing them between two different corporations generally ends up being multi-million dollar legal battles.

Spending a little time with a lawyer will cost a few hundred dollars. That tiny investment will help with that later (very expensive) legal fight.


If your ideas aren't worth that much money, they aren't worth the protection of an NDA.

Quote: Original post by Byron
Is there a standard NDA form ...

You've already gotten the answer. But now a question for you. Why do you need one? Who are you going to share a secret with? If you're going to, for example, submit a game concept to a publisher or something like that, then you don't need to create your own NDA.

I appreciate the answers on this.

Every place I have been to (say job interview) or even remotely taking a look at some companies work I have been required to sign an NDA before entering the door. There must be something more to this document than simply scare tactics surely?

I don't have any great secrets but I do have confidential business information of my own and companies I work for that if somebody were to visit my workplace I could not afford to get out and it seemed that an NDA would be the correct course of action..

An NDA only provides the protection you can afford - in other words if someone breaches it you need to pay to take them to court.

However there is another issue. An NDA is part of the professional process. People who act in a professional manner are less likely to end up in trouble because companies that rip people off will generally look for an easier target.

Quote: Original post by Obscure
An NDA only provides the protection you can afford - in other words if someone breaches it you need to pay to take them to court.

However there is another issue. An NDA is part of the professional process. People who act in a professional manner are less likely to end up in trouble because companies that rip people off will generally look for an easier target.

Thats a very good point. In which case will a standard NDA do under these circumstances?

It sounds like you can afford to pay a lawyer a few hundred dollars to draft an NDA for you. You should have one if, like you said, you have confidential business information of your own and of your clients. Having people sign an NDA is the bare minimum of due diligence you owe to your customer's data in your possession, and depending upon the nature of the information it may be legally required (i.e. HIPAA protected information).

Lawyers are not cheap, but this is a fairly straight forward document you should be able to get put together for $200-$300.

Quote: Original post by benfinkel

It sounds like you can afford to pay a lawyer a few hundred dollars to draft an NDA for you.

I wish :)

Quote: Original post by Byron

Quote: Original post by benfinkel
It sounds like you can afford to pay a lawyer a few hundred dollars to draft an NDA for you.

I wish :)

Then perhaps you can't afford (yet) to be in business. Patience and perseverance upon you.