Austin Contract Lawyer | Flat-Fee Review & Drafting

Why this matters

A contract is a prediction about what happens when things go wrong.

Most contract review is done by lawyers who have never had to enforce one. The clauses that look like boilerplate — indemnity, limitation of liability, dispute resolution, termination — are exactly the ones that decide who wins when a deal falls apart. Someone who has spent twenty years on the wrong end of those clauses in court reads them differently: not for what they say, but for what they'll do.

The clause that voids your remedy

Limitation-of-liability and waiver language routinely guts the protection a business thinks it has. We flag it before you sign, not after you're trying to collect.

The indemnity that outlives the deal

Indemnification and hold-harmless terms can follow you for years. We tell you plainly what you're agreeing to be on the hook for.

Where you'll actually fight

Venue, governing law, arbitration, and fee-shifting clauses decide what a dispute costs you before it even starts. These are negotiable — if you catch them in time.

The number, upfront

Flat-fee contract services.

Every matter is scoped on a free 20-minute call and quoted as a flat number before any work begins. If your contract is more complex than the starting price covers, you'll know exactly what it costs — before, not after.

Review

Contract Review

$750 — up to 15 pages

$1,500 — up to 50 pages

Someone hands you a contract to sign. Before you do, a litigator reads it and tells you what's actually in there.

Full redline of the document
Plain-English risk memo — the specific terms to push back on and why
A 30-minute call to walk through it
Three-business-day turnaround

On a deadline? A 24-hour rush is available for an additional 50%.

Book a free 20-minute call →

Drafting

Contract Drafting

$1,500 – $3,500

The agreement written from scratch to protect your side of the deal — by someone who knows how the other side will try to break it.

Drafted to your deal, not a template pulled off a shelf
Vendor & services agreements, NDAs, MSAs, employment & contractor sets, partnership & buy-sell agreements
Scoped by instrument — the flat price quoted before we start
One revision round included

A note on buy-sell agreements: if you own a business with partners, a buy-sell agreement is estate planning for the business itself — it decides what happens when a partner leaves, dies, or wants out.

Book a free 20-minute call →

How it works

Four steps, no meter running.

STEP 1

Free 20-minute call

You tell us what the contract is and what's at stake. We tell you the flat fee and the turnaround, on the call.

STEP 2

Send the document

You send the contract and any context. The clock starts when we have what we need — three business days, standard.

STEP 3

Redline & risk memo

You get the marked-up document and a plain-English memo: what's risky, what to change, and what it means if you don't.

STEP 4

The walk-through call

We get on the phone and go through it, so you're not decoding a memo alone. You sign knowing exactly what you're signing.

Who you'll work with

The person who reads your contract is the person who has litigated them.

Patrick Hotze

Founder & Attorney, Ridgeline Legal, PLLC

Before founding Ridgeline, Patrick spent two decades in complex litigation, co-founding a practice that recovered more than $200 million for clients across mass tort, pharmaceutical liability, and industrial accident matters. Past results don't guarantee future outcomes — but twenty years of litigating disputes teaches you exactly where contracts break and how the other side thinks.

Every contract is reviewed and drafted by Patrick personally. Modern tools handle the first pass on research and routine drafting, which is why the work moves fast — but the judgment about what actually matters in your deal is his, on every matter.

Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Licensed in Texas and Washington, D.C.

Questions

Straight answers, before you call.

How much does it cost to have a lawyer review a contract in Austin?+

Contract review is a flat fee: $750 for contracts up to 15 pages and $1,500 for contracts up to 50 pages. That includes a full redline, a plain-English memo on what to push back on, and a call to walk through it. The price is quoted before any work begins, not after.

What's the difference between contract review and drafting?+

Review means we read a contract someone has handed you — a vendor agreement, a lease, an MSA — and tell you what's risky before you sign. Drafting means we write the agreement from scratch to protect your side of the deal. Review starts at $750; drafting runs $1,500 to $3,500 depending on the instrument.

How fast can you review a contract?+

Standard turnaround is three business days from when we have the document and the context. If you're up against a signing deadline, a 24-hour rush is available for an additional 50%.

What kinds of contracts do you draft?+

Vendor and services agreements, NDAs, MSAs, employment and contractor agreements, and partnership and buy-sell agreements — from $1,500 to $3,500 depending on the instrument, with one revision round included. If you're not sure what you need, the free call sorts that out.

What areas do you serve?+

Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties, from our office in West Lake Hills. Most contract work is handled remotely, by email and call — you don't need to come in.

Before you sign it,
let a litigator read it.