Interior Design Law, Contracts & Templates
Navigating the Legal Landscape of Interior Design: Insights from Erica Canas
In the world of interior design, creativity and business acumen often take center stage. But there's a crucial element that many designers overlook until it's too late: legal protection. Just as we wouldn't drive without car insurance or leave our spouse and children unprotected without a will, operating an interior design business without proper legal safeguards is a risk no professional should take.
In this eye-opening podcast interview with Erica Canas from ID Law Shop, we delve into the legal aspects of running an interior design business that you can't afford to ignore. From the looming threat of litigious clients to the intricacies of contract law, Erica shares invaluable insights that could save your business from potential disaster.
Whether you're a seasoned designer or just starting out, this podcast conversation is a must-listen. Press play on the video below or tune into the audio version to arm yourself with the legal knowledge every interior designer needs.
Listen…
Don’t forget to subscribe to the Interior DesignHer podcast for regular doses of expert advice, industry insights, and practical tips. We’ve got a bunch of great interviews with some really smart ID business people coming up in Season 2.
Apple - Youtube Music - Spotify - Youtube
Watch…
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:50 How does Erica Canas - ID Law Shop - help interior designers?
01:52 Roles, Responsibilities & Legal Consequences
04:10 Compensation - Legal pitfalls to avoid
05:19 How to Exit away from a "bad" client
07:40 How bad can it get?
09:22 The advantages of hiring a lawyer OR using lawyer-created legal templates
13:10 Not all lawyers are experts in interior design law
14:49 Intellectual Property Law
15:51 Copyright
17:14 Trademark
17:42 Patents
17:54 NDAs - non-disclosure agreements
18:13 Licensing, licensing fees & limitations of use
18:57 Different levels of interior design businesses require different levels of legal assistance
21:48 Needing interior design legal support is a GOOD problem to have
23:00 Designer-friendly contracts vs Client-friendly contracts
24:02 Wrapping it up AND How to Contact Erica Canas - ID Law Shop
Read…
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Today I'm speaking with Erica Canas, a lawyer who helps interior designers with the legal side of their business. Obviously, the most exciting and sexy part of any interior design business is how they deal with the law. Erica, can you tell me a little bit about yourself, your practice, and what you do for interior designers?
Erica Canas - ID Law Shop: Hi. Yeah, firstly, thanks for having me on. Very happy to be here and get the conversation going about how interior designers can DIY help themselves with the legal aspects of their business. So, I'm a lawyer. I've been doing this for about. Oh, I've been a lawyer for about 15 years, and just recently, I. Well, about a year and a half ago, I launched ID Law Shop, which is essentially a resource for interior designers to find interior design contract templates for their business, whether it's services agreements or personnel agreements or terms and services for your website. So, yeah, that's how I could help. I also am licensed in Florida, and I provided bespoke services to interior designers located in Florida.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Erica, can you walk me through some of the more common legal issues that you have to deal with with interior designers?
Erica Canas - ID Law Shop: Yeah. So when we talk about legal issues or legal pitfalls, I'm thinking about what kinds of issues they might run into when their contracts aren't up to snuff.
So I think one of the biggest things that interior designers need to watch out for is defining roles and defining responsibilities. Interior designers, because they act as a middleman between the owner and maybe some the vendors, or whether it's other contractors, architects, they may be perceived as taking on a bigger role than they ought to be in terms of their liability.
So I think that defining roles, defining responsibilities, if the owner is responsible for making sure they get the permits and things like that, that needs to be laid out. Even if the interior designer does go ahead and say, I can help you with this, or I can expedite this, or I can get you someone that will help you with that. The contracts need to be very clear that even if I've recommended this vendor or this contractor, I'm not liable for their work. I'm not responsible for guaranteeing no mistakes or any sort of liability on their end.
So I think that's one of the big pitfalls, because clients, the minute they get a recommendation from an interior designer, might think the interior designer is fully responsible for that vendor or contractor's work. So that's one of these things that you can get around with quite easily and efficiently if you have the right contract language that says here, here, it's very clear I'm only supervising for purposes of the design intent. I'm not responsible for the ultimate outcome of their work.
So that's one that can be avoided with some good contract language. Is this the clarity around compensation? I know that designers are quite different in the way they approach this. Whereas some designers say, I don't need to disclose my discounts to my client, it's none of their business. However, there is ethical rules and there's many.
Such as in each state I talk about, you need to disclose the way you're going to be compensated. So I err on the side of disclose everything. So that's one thing that designers should be quite weary about.
If they want to do that back end deal with their vendors and not let their clients know about what's going on, that could be an issue.
An exit strategy. Sometimes contracts one party or the other wants to end terminate the contract early. Whether owner has budgets run out or they need to suspend it for a little while, or maybe on the side of the interior designer, they realize the project is taking way more time than they anticipated and they have capacity for, and they want to terminate.
If your contract doesn't give you an exit strategy that says, you know, either party can terminate this agreement for any reason or for specific reasons, the designer or the other party is going to have a hard time exiting the contract without breaching it or entering to this legal dispute of breach of contract.
So a contract can really help you set out the procedures for terminating an agreement. If one party or the other wants to get out of it. And it could, you know, in a nice, clean way. As clean as possible.
Yeah.
And I guess maybe the last pitfall that I'll talk about is change orders. If something changes, which often does in an interior design project, that needs to be documented, whether it's an official change order or whether it's an email where both parties have definitely, you know, replied to everyone signed off on this, it needs to be documented that the scope has changed. This might affect fees. This might affect the budget. I think people get in trouble when, when changes are made in an unofficial way, in an undocumented way, then it kind of creates a cascading effect of delays and additional expenses.
And if it hasn't been agreed to in writing, it could lead to a lot of argument over why do I have this charge now?
And this wasn't part of the original deal, and if it's not in the original contract, you can have an issue enforcing it.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: I would assume that all of these, these four issues that you brought up, like, as serious as they sound. Right. If you approach these before. Right before you start your business or before you start your next project, the. You don't want to get into this and have this problem happen, because what happens if, like, say, breach of contract and. And you run in?
What can happen to a designer, say a residential designer who's got a small business principal designer, maybe a couple of employees?
What can happen if they don't have this kind of contract in place and the client decides to become litigious about some issue? Like, how bad can it get?
Erica Canas - ID Law Shop: I mean, as bad as losing a lawsuit can be, a litigious client can. Besides the lawsuit and having to deal with the expense of that, it could be super stressful and time consuming. So to avoid that kind of stress, financial drain and just sort of time and emotional consumption, you should have your contracts inorder and just, you won't be able to anticipate every single situation under the sun.
But a good contract that contemplates very sort of run of the mill standard issues that tend to come up often in these situations, in these projects, can go a long way into saving you so much money and stress,
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay, so let's say I'm an interior design business owner, and I said, I've been watching this and saying, you know, okay, this is something I need to do, but, you know, I don't know that I want to spend the money on a lawyer to help me draw this up because I've got friends who've got contracts already. They'll just send me theirs and I'll use theirs, or I'll go online at home. Maybe I'll use chat GPT, I'll ask chat GPT to whip me up some contracts. Or, you know, there's people who are selling all these contract templates online, right? All these interior design business experts who said, okay, well, here you go, here's, here's everything you need. What do you think of those kind of options? I already know the answer, but no.
Erica Canas - ID Law Shop: I mean, using a lawyer to draft your contracts is the gold standard. Obviously. You should always do that if you can and you can afford it. If you cannot or you're just not ready to make that investment yet, you're just starting off or your project is super simple. A simple template can go a long way. It's obviously better than not having anything because it's going to get you. If you actually sit down and read it, it's going to get you to think about all these things you might not have thought about.
My concern with non lawyer templates or templates that are generic from liketemplate depot or whatever. I don't know if that's a real place, but you know what I mean. For example, they might not be as nuanced as they need to be for the entire interior design industry or projects because there's so much that goes into an interior design project. There are so many moving parts, there are so many contingencies, it's hard to capture them all.
So a good high quality template will help you navigate probably many more scenarios and think about certain things that you might want to include versus a generic template or one that wasn't created by a lawyer.
With my templates, one thing that I think is helpful is that I update them all the time. And when you buy a template, you'll get a Google link where you can come back to it whenever you want. Click on the link, you'll download a new copy and you get to see if it's been updated because it will have the last version, last modified date on it. And if it's a really big, substantial update, I'll go ahead and email all the people that have bought that particular template and let them know that there's an update. But the advantage I have is that I work with interior designers all the time, so I get to think about things that may need modification, templates and contracts.
You should always review them, your own personal ones, for your business. You know, some people say you should review them on an annual basis. You want to keep them fresh. There might have been something that an issue came up with a client and this template hadn't contemplated that. I get to update it really quick, and clients will have access to that.
So that's another benefit of using a lawyer drafted template that also provides that update feature.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And as you were talking, I was thinking there's another option that we didn't cover would be somebody working with a lawyer to help draft these contracts. But the lawyer doesn't have experience working with interior designers, because talking about the updates, I would assume that if I sit down with my family lawyer to do this, they're going to rely on me for, you know, what kind of pitfalls do you think we can have? And I'm like, I would rather you. You do that for me.
Erica Canas - ID Law Shop: Yeah. I mean, you don't go to a criminal lawyer to write your will and vice versa. So, yeah, it absolutely makes sense. If someone told me to work on this tax litigation, I'd be. I wouldn't know what to do, you know?
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Right. So the value is for. For me, if I have to, if I'm going to work with you, the value has been not just your legal expertise. Right. But your knowledge of what I do for a living and problems I may not even foresee, because you've had other people who've run into this problem before.
Erica Canas - ID Law Shop: Exactly. The fortunate, unfortunate thing is that people come to me when they have issues, so I get to see all the mistakes that other people get to make and help other people not make those same mistakes.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And we talked earlier about the pitfalls that designers can run into, and most of them were project related in terms of things actually getting built or built incorrectly. But what about, what about a designer who. All they do is the design. They don't do any project management. All they do is design.
What about intellectual property, especially now, considering the rise of AI and image generated things like that People are going to steal other designers work, and not specifically about AI, but intellectual property in general.
Do you work with that side of the law?
Erica Canas - ID Law Shop: Yeah. When it comes to interior design, it's a little tricky because not everything in interior design is protectable, which a lot of what interior designers do is arrange a room or interior decorators. That's what they'll do. A lot of that. Or select paint colors and things like that. That falls under the category of ideas necessary so that won't be protected.
However, drawings images, 3d models, sketches, all of that tangible stuff is protectable. So for instance, a designer that's only designing and they've designed something really creative that is copyright protectable. Not if it's just kind of generic. The law will look at that and say, you can't own that, that's just a generic layout. There's nothing unusual about it.
But if there are unusual things about it, it could rise to the level of copyright protection. So there's so many, this could, this conversation could go on for hours because there's so many things that interior designers can do to protect their interior design.
First, understand protected custom designed furniture is protected. Murals, you know, unique wall treatments are protected. Like we were mentioning earlier, maybe floor plans that are particularly creative or unusual can be protected.
So understanding what can be protected is one thing, and then understanding what kind of protection. So for these sorts of things, copyright protection applies for your brand, your logo. Maybe you have a slogan, maybe you have a particular design element that you use along with your design. That's your signature design that could be protected by trademark.
So when you think of creative output, you think copyright, copyright, registration, when you think about branding, that's trademark and you can get a trademark registration for your branding.
So, and there's other things if you really have designed, like furniture design and ornamental elements of a furniture design, that can be protected by a design patent. Also just having NDAs in place. So you could protect sort of your processes, your client list, or maybe your vendor list, that could all be protected as a trade secret with NDAs and just contract language.
You know, if your contract, if you're just designing this is, I'm just going to give you my creative technical drawings that could be granted a license could be granted to use that to the entity, the owner, whoever it is that's purchasing that. And you can have limitations against the use. You can only use it for this project. If you're going to use it for any other project, you need my permission and that could be subject to a licensing fee, things like that.
That kind of language helps protect people that are just doing the creative aspects.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Actually got me thinking of something else. I'm sure your clients, you're dealing with clients that are at different phases, stages or sizes of companies, right? So if someone is just starting out, they've hung out their shingle and all they're doing is design work and maybe referring to a contractor or whatever, it's a simpler business. Right, right.
And as they progress and maybe kind of move up the food chain in terms of the scope of the job, the price of the job, the affluence of the client. Right. Because what you were saying there about, you know, there may be clients that do not want you to use what you did for them with anybody else. If you're just, if you're just a beginner, you're not running into somebody like that. But if you, if you're a million dollar project, they may say, you know, this is fantastic work. I don't want to see it at anyone else's house. Right. I don't want to see it in a magazine. I want to see it anywhere. Right.
And so I'm assuming that depending on what the business is like, what the design business is like, the scope of what you have to do for them, like, can expand dramatically.
Erica Canas - ID Law Shop: Yeah. I mean, it really all depends. Large commercial projects or a hospitality client might say, I need to own these drawings. And if you're a smaller designer, you might say, that's fine, I don't care. I'm just happy to have this really great client. But if you're a bigger designer and your design is part of your brand, you might say, absolutely not, I'll give you a license to use it, and maybe it'll be a very broad license. But there's no way that I'm giving you my designs because they want to keep some level of control over how it would be used in the future and also compensation for future use.
So, yeah, it's really tricky. And this is where I advise designers, speak with your local council. If you run into this, because it could be a big deal if they're giving away their ip versus holding onto some control, it could mean a big financial sort of giveaway unnecessarily if they just let it go that way.
I don't know if this is a question, but this is where we ended up. I'm sorry if I'm not answering your question.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: No, I think you did completely. I mean, I was going to say, at the end of the day, though, this is a good problem to have. The just starting out designer oesn't know anything and could definitely benefit from sitting down with you or using one of your templates, um, to kind of get the ball rolling. And then as they progress and their projects become more complicated and there's more money on the line, because at the end of the day, that's. That's going to be the, the way a problem is solved. Right? Yeah. It's going to come down to money. And if those are the kind of projects you're doing, you know what? Like, yeah, you have to protect that.
Right. Everybody's got insurance on their car. You don't even think twice about that.
Erica Canas - ID Law Shop: Right. And a lot of what I do is basically educating clients because they're very willing to just do whatever the client wants just to get the job. And sometimes it's worth the little pushback that you might negotiate. You might say, okay, you could have that client, but I need to keep this. And the way I drafted my, my templates is that they are, they're quite interior design friendly.
A lot of the, here's another difference. With templates that are out there, they might be client friendly, overly client friendly, where they give away things like that, like your entire ip, you know, they have ownership, copyright, ownership of the drawings, etcetera. They might have dispute resolution clauses that are very one sided. So the benefit of getting a template that's drafted by someone with an industry specific focus is that the template itself might be crafted that, to be a little more business friendly as opposed to, but fair and balanced. Because if you don't have a fair and balanced contract, you're just going to have problems with your client and they're just going to be unhappy and you're going to have to negotiate and it's just going to suck up your time. But you don't want it to be overly or not to your benefit at the end.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah. To finding that balance. Right. Yeah.
Erica, I wanted to thank you. This was fantastic. I learned a lot and I'm hoping that interior designers learned a lot today. And if any of them have decided that maybe they need to address contracts or speak with you directly about some handholding to get it done correctly.
How can they get in touch with you?
Erica Canas - ID Law Shop: Sure. Thanks. My website is idlawshop.com, and I can be reached at erica@idlawshop.com or connect@idlawshop.com. that would be the easiest way.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay. And I will put all of that stuff in the show notes so everybody's got a clickable link. Make life easier, and thanks so much. I learned a ton.
The legal landscape of interior design may seem daunting, but as Erica Canas has shown us, it's a vital part of running a successful, sustainable business. Just as we invest in quality materials and tools for our design work, investing in proper legal protection is an essential part of professional practice.
For more in-depth guidance tailored specifically to interior designers, check out Erica Canas' website. There, you'll find contract templates, personalized legal services, and a wealth of resources to ensure your business stands on solid legal ground. Remember, proactive legal protection isn't just an expense – it's an investment in your business's future and your peace of mind.
Connect with Erica Canas - ID Law Shop
If you want to sample some of Erica’s work, she has a free interior design contract checklist available for download on her website.
If you want to chat with Erica, you can connect with her at:
If you enjoyed this episode of the Interior DesignHer podcast, you’re going to love all the other business education resources we’re bringing to interior designers.
As designers ourselves, we created Interior DesignHer to bring top-notch business education to interior designers. We especially have a soft-spot for interior design solopreneurs & micro-businesses.
If this sounds good to you, join us & we’ll email you updates when we find or build something cool to help your biz.
