Why Law 365 is essential for new Microsoft Partners

My ambition is to help Law 365 do even more to support Microsoft Partners - and I believe I am uniquely positioned to do this.

Law 365 has always been highly innovative with their Legal as a Service (LaaS) approach and subscription model to their commercial, employment and coaching services. And this is in part because Kim has worked with me for over a decade refining our vision of the perfect legal partner for a Microsoft business.

I founded and, over 17 years, grew one of the most respected Microsoft Partners, Content and Code (now Content+Cloud). In 2018, I sold it into a Private Equity backed buy-and-build. We then acquired and integrated a further five companies to build a £100m+ revenue and £22m+ EBITDA business.

So when Kim and I were developing our plan for ways that Law 365 could make itself essential to Microsoft Partners, I looked back at how I needed support as my business grew.

Start ups - you don’t know what you don’t know

For the first few years at C+C, we used old contracts that we’d been using for years at previous places of work. But as we became more successful, I realised that our contracts weren't suitable for the clients we were winning or the type of work we were delivering.

So, I went to a law firm and asked them to provide the contracts we needed. It was a bit of a David and Goliath moment. I felt very much at their mercy as I wasn’t sure what I needed or if what I was buying would future-proof my business. They offered a price of £9,000 for a long list of contracts and, after some haggling, I bought the contract templates for £6,000 (back in 2004). This was a huge investment for us and one that we could barely afford.

I wished the lawyer had explained what ‘caveat emptor’ meant (buyer beware) – as we got contracts that were not very good, and this only became apparent over the following months. For example, the contracts had different definitions and conflicting clauses without any explanatory notes or instructions on how to use them. If we sold two services, such as consultancy (or project work with support services to follow) then we had to give the customer two contracts and each one contradicted the other, which made negotiations more time consuming and costly and very frustrating. We realised that we did not have a set of cohesive templates that were designed for a Microsoft Partner business that frequently need to deliver various services, hardware and software in one engagement.

Here are just 2 of the ways I think Law 365 helps start-up, early years and small Microsoft Partners.

1. Templates created specifically for Microsoft Partners

We provide an amazing set of templates created for Microsoft Partners to address their specific needs. The templates are all designed to work together so whatever combination of services, products and software you provide, the templates will be suitable for you.

Critically, the templates have all the Microsoft related flow down terms and clauses such as:

- New Commerce Experience,
- DPoR (Digital Partner of Record),
- CPoR (Claiming Partner of Record),
- PAL (Partner Admin Link), and
- PoE (Proof of Execution)

So we make sure to get your Microsoft rebates and recognition by Microsoft for the work you are delivering and customers you are helping. Conservatively, I think most Microsoft Partners are missing £10K to £100K in rebates each year. At C+C we were claiming over £1 million per annum.

2. Launching our "forever contracts"

When you are starting your business and still small, it’s difficult to afford good legal support, especially if you need to spend over £10,000 to get a set of templates!
So, coming soon, we will be offering our ‘forever contracts’ at an affordable monthly fee.

So, what are ‘forever contracts’?

Have you ever worried that your contracts aren’t up to date? Our Forever Contracts are automatically updated whenever there is a change to Microsoft terms, for example all the recent NCE (New Commerce Experience) changes, or regulatory and compliance changes such as the data protection laws. No more worrying about updating contracts terms – You will always have the latest and greatest contracts for your business.

Next month I’ll let you know what we have for medium-sized Microsoft Partners (25-60 staff).

How can we help you?

Law 365's friendly team of Microsoft speaking legal experts would love to hear from you. Whether you're just getting started, know what exactly you need, or have a question for us, please get in touch via our Get Started page.