Employment contract
Review your employment contract before you accept
The salary is the part of an offer everyone reads. The parts that decide what happens if you leave in eighteen months - vesting cliff, clawback, notice, garden leave, post-termination restrictions - are the parts people sign unread. You have more negotiating leverage before you sign than you will ever have again.
For anyone weighing a job offer, a promotion, or a new contract from an employer.
No account needed. You see the price before paying, and the report opens immediately after.
What we check in an employment contract
Every review of this contract type runs the full checklist, then reports what it found with the clause quoted and the line number.
- Base, bonus and whether the bonus is discretionary in fact as well as in name
- Equity: grant size, vesting schedule, cliff, acceleration on a change of control, and the exercise window after you leave
- Clawback and repayment clauses on signing bonuses, relocation and training costs
- Notice period on each side, and whether it is symmetric
- Garden leave and whether it is paid at full salary including benefits
- Non-compete: scope, duration, geography and whether it is enforceable where you live
- Non-solicitation of clients and of colleagues - two separate restrictions, often conflated
- IP assignment, and whether it reaches your side projects and work done before you joined
- Whether the contract can be varied unilaterally by the employer
- Termination for cause and how widely "cause" is defined
Red flags we see most often
These are the specific terms that turn a routine employment contract into an expensive one.
- "Cause" defined to include acts that would not normally justify summary dismissal
- A signing-bonus clawback repayable gross rather than net of tax
- An IP assignment with no carve-out schedule for pre-existing or personal projects
- A 90-day post-termination exercise window on options with no extension - common, and frequently makes vested equity worthless
- A non-compete with no geographic limit, or one longer than 12 months
- Notice of one month from you and one week from them
- A clause allowing the employer to amend terms at will
What you get back
Not a summary of what the contract says. A list of what to change, and the wording to change it to.
Risk score and verdict
A calibrated 0–100 score with a one-line verdict. Clean documents score low — the score is only useful if it can say "this is fine".
Findings with the quote
Each issue names the clause, quotes it verbatim, explains the consequence in your contract's own numbers, and says how far it deviates from market standard.
Pasteable redlines
Replacement wording drafted for each issue, ready to send back to the other side.
What's missing
The standard protections for this contract type that your document does not contain.
Deadlines to calendar
Every date and trigger that costs you something if you miss it, with the consequence spelled out.
Negotiation playbook
Your asks in priority order, the reason to give for each, and the fallback position if they refuse.
Questions about employment contracts
Can I negotiate an employment contract after receiving an offer?
Yes, and the window between verbal offer and signature is when your leverage peaks - they have chosen you and restarting the search is expensive. Ask for two or three specific changes with a reason for each, in writing, in one message. Asking for fifteen changes reads as difficult; asking for two reads as careful.
What should I look for in an employment contract before signing?
In order of how often they cause real damage: the post-termination restrictions, the equity terms including the exercise window, any clawback, the notice period on both sides, and the IP assignment. Salary is the easiest term to verify and the hardest to get wrong.
Is a non-compete in an employment contract enforceable?
It depends on where you work and what you earn. California voids them for nearly all employees; several other states set compensation thresholds below which they are unenforceable; UK courts enforce them only so far as reasonably necessary to protect a legitimate business interest. Our review names the jurisdiction stated in your contract and tells you which test applies.
What is a vesting cliff?
A period at the start of a vesting schedule during which nothing vests - typically 12 months. Leave on day 364 and you keep nothing; stay to day 366 and a full year vests at once. It is the single most consequential date in most equity grants.
Should I have a lawyer review my employment contract?
For a standard offer at ordinary seniority, a structured review against a checklist catches almost everything worth catching. For an executive contract, one with meaningful equity, or one with restrictions that would limit your next job, pay an employment lawyer - and hand them this report so they spend their hour on judgment rather than on reading.
Related guides
Employment Contract Review Checklist: 21 Things to Check
The clauses that decide what happens if you leave, ranked by how often they cause real damage - with what is standard and what to ask for.
Garden Leave Clause Explained: What It Means and Costs
What a garden leave clause actually does, who pays during it, whether it counts towards your non-compete, and the three terms worth negotiating.
Stock Option Cliff Vesting Explained: The Dates to Know
How a vesting cliff works, why day 364 and day 366 are worth a year of equity, and the exercise window that quietly makes vested options worthless.
Clawback Clauses in Employment Contracts: What You Repay
Signing bonus, relocation and training clawbacks explained - including why repaying the gross amount can cost more than you ever received.
Review your employment contract now
$49, no account, about two minutes. See a complete sample report first if you want to judge the depth before paying — and if yours finds nothing you can act on, we refund it.
Other contract types: NDA · freelance contract · SaaS agreement · severance agreement · lease · consulting agreement · non-compete · MSA · partnership agreement · loan agreement · terms of service · influencer agreement · purchase agreement · settlement agreement · licensing agreement · distribution agreement · insurance policy