We've had a fantastic year here at Uplink — the size of our community more than doubled to almost 600 members, we hosted regular craft beer meetups in Berlin where we had the chance to meet many of our members in person, and we moved to a nicer office — just to name a few highlights of 2018.

A few weeks ago, we sat down and thought about how we could give something back to our community. Quickly we came to the conclusion that we wouldn't impress anyone with a small gadget or voucher — and let's be honest, it would probably end up in a drawer or trash bin anyway. So we thought "how about engaging our community to give something back to other worthy causes?"

Earlier this month the VGSD — Verband der Gründer und Selbstständigen Deutschland e.V. — held an online presentation with lawyer Julia Gertz, who specializes in IT contracts and showed us how to identify unfair service contracts.

Please note that we are not lawyers and this post should not be taken as legal advice! Every contract is unique, so if you have one on the table, get it checked by an actual lawyer! (scroll down for Julia Gertz's contact info)

When the client sets out the rules of how they want to work with the freelancer, it is the case, more often than not, that those rules work in the client’s favor. There seems to be a common belief that, as the smaller party with less legal assertiveness, we have no choice but to accept these rules But our position is stronger than we think: It pays off to inspect the contracts and demand changes to create a level playing field.