Igor Vayner law firm advice for beginning programmers on doing services right
Whenever you start doing any IT-related project work make sure you have 3 types of documents in place:
NDA - Non-Disclosure Agreement. This initial document regulates your privacy and confidentiality rights. Later on, certain sections are included in the MSA, but NDA is the first paper you should sign.
MSA - Master Service Agreement. This is the ruling document for all of your relations with the client. It rarely can be 1-2 pages, so don’t be idealistic about most of the templates you can find on the web.
SOW - Statement of Work. This is a binding document to the master agreement which regulates the particular scope of your development.
Having these docs in a good shape will provide you great defense in case of any sort of lawsuits.