RE: Legal Question

Nick,
  While I'm not a lawyer (I'm sure the ones here can help you
better than this), but you have 3 things to look at:

1) Since there is no formal agreement you client does not own
the rights to the site.  A copyright must be signed over  in
order for it to be transfered.  There may be exceptions to this,
but from what I have seen this is essentially the rule.

2) Since you had no formal agreement he should not be able to
arbitrarily assign a price to the work.  I don't know how the
courts feel about verbal agreements and changing terms, but I
don't see this holding water.  I would think the court would
have to decide if your client upheld his part of the deal and
would thus require the original designer to keep the site intact
until the deal was broken by you client.

3) If you are getting involved, first and foremost have them
sign a "hold harmless" agreement with you stating that they take
full responsibility for the condition of teh site they have handed
to you and that they will pay for any legal defense you may require
on their behalf.

  Once the agreement is signed, you can simply let them work
it out and continue with your job.  The job of a designer is
to work on the project for the client, not take one their legal
woes.


Drew Lehman
Digitaeye Designs
http://www.digitaeye.com
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