On November 17, 2020, VRSC/ARAC presented “Negotiating Your Deal Memo;” a one-hour workshop led by Willa Marcus with some cameo appearances by a few members. The session was designed to help guide members through the process of contracting their services in a fun, interactive and informative zoom conference.

Workshop Welcome and Intro by Laura Lucas

Welcome to “Negotiating Your Deal Memo”!

This is our fall workshop. As many of you know, VRSC/ARAC holds 2 workshops a year; 1 in spring and 1 in fall on topics of interest to our members. We record these sessions and house them on our website under the members-only section so you can refer back to them when needed. There will be a Q&A at the end, so please post your questions in the chat window.

Today’s topic stems from a longstanding concern among members about how we can best understand what may seem like heavy-handed language in our contracts and Deal Memos, and to help specify direction in what the work will entail on a particular job.

I have emails going back 5 years on this… and at the 2019 AGM it was announced that a small committee was working to address the issue.

VRSC set out to do 2 things:

1. Create a set of guidelines identifying things to look out for when presented with an agreement
2. Create a template that could serve as a basis for a Deal memo if needed to present to a client

Both documents were officially revealed at the May 2020 AGM and hopefully everyone was able to download them for today.

I want to say THANK YOU to:

• Elspeth Domville, Nancy Marcotte, Monica Penner and Willa Marcus who started the job
• Laura Lucas, Tammy Egan and Kathy Fisher came aboard last year to help finish the work
• And Catherine Brunet took up the challenge to have everything translated into French.

So, a lot of people were involved, and I hope you all agree these are great resource documents for our members to have. Thank you to all involved.

Without further ado, let me introduce you to one of the architects of our Deal Memo – Willa Marcus. She began her working life at the CBC in radio, then as a TV Producer and was part of the team that set up The Journal with Barbara Frum and the business show VENTURE. Then she became a lawyer and has been working in film and television – and books and podcasts ever since. She’s a dear friend and one of VRSC’s strongest supporters. Welcome Willa!