The whole thing annoys me, but this is what really grinds my gears:
Frank again disagreed and so I made him an offer: If his client promised that it would charge no more than $15K in attorneys’ fees, then we would agree to use the NVCA forms. Frank agreed, but on the condition that we draft the forms.
Although we had secured a legally enforceable right that no more than $15K in attorneys’ fees would be charged to my client, it didn’t matter. True to form, the IPO deal team ran a heavy due diligence over the next six weeks and amassed a six-figure legal fee. To get the deal done, my client was told it had to cover at least half the deal team’s fee, at which this point was well over six figures. They said the “$15K was a mistake” and the “spirit of the deal was always to cover half of our legal fees.” What’s ironic was that we had only one enforceable term in the term sheet and it was the $15K fee cap.
Frank again disagreed and so I made him an offer: If his client promised that it would charge no more than $15K in attorneys’ fees, then we would agree to use the NVCA forms. Frank agreed, but on the condition that we draft the forms.
Although we had secured a legally enforceable right that no more than $15K in attorneys’ fees would be charged to my client, it didn’t matter. True to form, the IPO deal team ran a heavy due diligence over the next six weeks and amassed a six-figure legal fee. To get the deal done, my client was told it had to cover at least half the deal team’s fee, at which this point was well over six figures. They said the “$15K was a mistake” and the “spirit of the deal was always to cover half of our legal fees.” What’s ironic was that we had only one enforceable term in the term sheet and it was the $15K fee cap.