Need Help With a Contract?

The one you signed, the one you never got in writing, or the one you are about to sign — start a free AI-assisted chat and connect with an attorney. No cost, no obligation.

Free AI-assisted chat that connects you with an attorney about any contract or agreement, in any state.
Experienced contract lawyers review your situation and explain your options.
No obligation — the chat does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Most contract disasters are not caused by fine print. They are caused by a deal that was never written down, a term nobody defined, or a signature someone later claimed was not theirs.
Our attorneys help you find out whether you actually have a contract, what it obligates you to do, and what you can recover if the other side walks away from it.
Contract Review Before You Sign — We read the agreement with you and flag the terms that decide what happens when something goes wrong: automatic renewal, arbitration, venue, indemnity, late fees, and cancellation.
Is There Even a Contract? — Offer, acceptance, consideration, and no defense to formation. We walk through whether those four things happened, including when nothing was ever signed.
Statute of Frauds Analysis — Some agreements are unenforceable unless they are in writing. We tell you whether yours is one of them and whether what you have satisfies the rule.
Emails, Texts, and E-Signatures — We assess whether your email thread, online click-through, or typed name is a legally sufficient signed writing under the federal E-SIGN Act and your state’s version of UETA.
Breach of Contract — We evaluate what the other side failed to do, whether it was a material breach, and what remedies are realistically available to you.
Damages and the Duty to Mitigate — Contract damages aim to put you where performance would have left you. We also explain your own obligation to limit the loss, which many people do not know they have.
Leases and Rental Agreements — Security deposits, repairs, early termination, and what a landlord may and may not keep.
Purchases and Bills of Sale — Used vehicles, equipment, and private-party sales, including what “as-is” really does and does not cover.
Service and Contractor Agreements — Remodelers, mechanics, freelancers, and vendors: scope of work, milestone payments, deadlines, and getting your money back.
Getting Out of a Contract — Cancellation windows, rescission, unconscionability, misrepresentation, and other defenses to enforcement.

Use of the Contract Chat does not create an attorney-client relationship. Conversations are for informational purposes based on what you share and are not a substitute for advice from a licensed attorney about your specific agreement. Contract law is largely state law, and the answer can change from one state to the next.

By using this service you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.

Related Resources

Read the plain-English background on how contracts are formed and enforced in the 1LAW Contracts Law Library.
Browse attorney-answered questions from real people at Business & Contract Legal Answers.
Read the legal definition of a contract and the elements courts look for at the Cornell Legal Information Institute.
Review which agreements must be written at Cornell LII’s Statute of Frauds entry.
If a seller or service provider misled you, see the FTC’s consumer advice on deceptive practices and how to report them.
For loans, financing, and other money agreements, consult the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Read the federal electronic signature statute itself in this regulator’s guide to the E-SIGN Act.
Check whether and how your state adopted the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) at the Uniform Law Commission.
Read the writing requirement for goods sales at UCC § 2-201 (Cornell Legal Information Institute).

Contract FAQs

Does a contract have to be in writing to be enforceable?

Usually not. Most oral agreements are enforceable if there was an offer, an acceptance, and consideration on both sides. The exceptions come from the Statute of Frauds, which requires a signed writing for certain categories — real estate, promises to pay another person’s debt, agreements that cannot be completed within a year, and sales of goods at or above the statutory threshold. Proving an oral contract is a separate problem from whether it is enforceable.

Can an email or text message count as a signed contract?

It can. Under the federal E-SIGN Act and state versions of UETA, an electronic record can be the “writing” and an electronic mark can be the “signature.” What matters is that the messages contain the essential terms — the parties, the subject, the price, and the core obligations — and that the sender meant the typed name, signature block, or click to authenticate the message.

Do I need DocuSign for an electronic signature to be legal?

No. E-SIGN and UETA are technology-neutral and vendor-neutral. No statute requires a particular brand or platform. Any service or workflow that meets the legal requirements — intent to sign, consent to transact electronically, association of the signature with the document, a reliable audit trail, and retention in a reproducible form — produces an enforceable signature.

What can I recover if someone breaks a contract?

Typically money damages, measured to put you in the position you would have been in had the contract been performed. Specific performance — a court ordering the other side to actually do the thing — is the exception, most often in real estate. Punitive damages are almost never awarded for breach of contract alone. You also have a duty to take reasonable steps to limit your own losses.

The Three Contracts Most People Actually Need

Businesses sign hundreds of agreements. Most individuals sign a handful, and they are almost always one of these three. Each one turns on a small number of terms that decide what happens when the deal goes sideways.

Residential Lease or Rental Agreement

Sets the terms between a landlord and a tenant for a home, apartment, or room: monthly rent, how long the lease runs, security deposit rules, who handles maintenance, and how either side ends it.

Where it goes wrong: deposits withheld without an itemized reason, repairs nobody agreed to make, and early termination. See our Housing & Tenant answers.

Purchase Agreement or Bill of Sale

Documents the transfer of ownership of something valuable — a used car, a boat, major equipment. It records the buyer and seller, the price, how it was paid, the VIN or serial number, and whether the sale is “as-is” or carries a warranty.

Where it goes wrong: undisclosed defects, title that never transfers, and a buyer who assumes “as-is” means “no recourse at all.” It does not always mean that.

Service or Independent Contractor Agreement

Used when hiring a remodeler, landscaper, mechanic, tutor, or freelancer. It sets the scope of work, the deliverables, deadlines, milestone payments, and how disputes get resolved.

Where it goes wrong: work that stops after a large deposit, scope that quietly expands, and a “final” invoice nobody agreed to. See Business Law for the commercial version.

Where a Template Stops and a Lawyer Starts

Online form libraries are genuinely useful when you already know which document you need and nothing has gone wrong yet. Fill in the blanks, sign it, keep a copy. If that describes your situation, a good template will serve you.

Most people who go looking for contract help are not in that situation. Here is the gap a form cannot close.

You have to know what you need first

A document library assumes you can name the agreement you are looking for. The hardest part is usually the step before that — working out what kind of legal problem you actually have. That is where the chat starts.

Forms look forward. Problems look backward

Templates help you paper a deal you are about to make. They do nothing for the deal you already made — the handshake, the email thread, the contract the other side just broke. Those questions need someone to read what happened, not a blank form.

Contract law is state law

A national template is a starting draft. Whether a clause is enforceable, how long you have to sue, and what a court will award vary from state to state. Being told what your state does is different from being handed a document that works in most of them.

The conversation is the free part

There is no subscription tier and no card. Talking to an attorney is where we begin, not an upgrade you unlock. And if it turns into a dispute, the attorneys who litigate it are the ones you already spoke to.

If you do want a document drafted, that is work an attorney can do for you — drafted for your facts and your state rather than adapted from a form.

Does It Have to Be in Writing? The Statute of Frauds

The Statute of Frauds is an old common-law rule that survives in every state. It says that certain kinds of contracts must be in writing and signed by the party you are trying to enforce the contract against, or a court will not enforce them at all. The point is to keep the most consequential deals from turning into one person’s word against another’s.

The categories are narrow. They generally include:

Real estate — sale, purchase, or transfer of real property, and leases running longer than one year.
Agreements that cannot be performed within one year — measured from when the contract was made, not from when performance starts.
Sales of goods at or above the statutory threshold — $500 or more under UCC § 2-201 as adopted in most states.
Suretyship and guarantees — a promise to answer for someone else’s debt or obligation.
Agreements made in consideration of marriage — including prenuptial agreements.

Everything outside those categories can be an enforceable oral contract. That surprises people in both directions: the handshake deal you assumed was worthless may be binding, and the important arrangement you never reduced to writing may not be. Which side of the line you are on is worth ten minutes of a lawyer’s attention before you act on it.

Background reading: Contracts in the 1LAW Law Library.

Do Emails and Texts Count as a Signed Writing?

Under traditional common law, “in writing” meant ink on paper. That is no longer the rule. The federal Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-SIGN) and state enactments of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) modernized the standard.

Electronic records are writings

Email exchanges, electronic documents, online forms, and in some circumstances text messages qualify as legal “writings” — provided they contain the essential terms of the deal: the parties, the subject matter, the price, and the core obligations.

Electronic marks are signatures

A typed name at the end of an email, an automatic signature block, a click-to-accept button, or a commercial e-signature service can all satisfy the signature requirement — if the sender intended the mark to authenticate the message and the parties agreed, expressly or by their conduct, to deal electronically.

This cuts both ways. People negotiate entire agreements over email believing nothing is binding until a formal document is signed, and are surprised to learn the thread itself may be the contract. Others assume a text exchange settled a deal when it never contained enough terms to be one. If a deal of yours lives in an inbox, that is a good reason to have someone read it.

Do You Need DocuSign? No.

Both E-SIGN and UETA are technology-neutral and vendor-neutral. Neither mandates a specific brand, platform, or piece of software. DocuSign, Adobe Acrobat Sign, PandaDoc, an open-source tool, or an internal workflow are all equally capable of producing a binding signature — as long as five things are true.

REQUIREMENT 1

Intent to sign

The signer has to show they meant to execute the agreement — drawing a signature, typing a name, or clicking an explicit “Agree and Sign” button. An accidental keystroke is not a signature.

REQUIREMENT 2

Consent to do business electronically

The parties must agree to transact electronically. In consumer transactions, E-SIGN goes further: the consumer must be told they can receive paper records, told how to withdraw consent, and must demonstrate they can actually access the electronic records.

REQUIREMENT 3

Association with the document

The signature has to be logically attached to or embedded in the specific record being signed, so it cannot be detached and moved onto a different agreement.

REQUIREMENT 4

Attribution and audit trail

The system must be able to prove who signed, when, and from where. Compliant tools capture timestamps, IP addresses, email verification, and document hashes so tampering is detectable. This is the requirement homemade workflows most often miss.

REQUIREMENT 5

Retention and accessibility

The completed contract has to be stored so every party can retain it, download it, and accurately reproduce it later — including as evidence in court. A signature nobody can produce two years from now is not much of a signature.

If you are on the receiving end of a dispute about whether you signed something, these five requirements are also the checklist for attacking the signature. Bring the document to the chat and we will walk through it.

More Contract Help on 1LAW

Contracts Law Library

Formation, express and implied contracts, quasi-contract, enforcement, and the Statute of Frauds.

Business & Contract Legal Answers

Attorney-reviewed answers to contract questions real people asked, organized by state.

Business Law

Employment contracts, vendor and supplier agreements, commercial leases, and breach of contract disputes.

Civil Litigation

What happens if a contractual dispute has to be filed, litigated, or tried.

Consumer Protection Answers

Deceptive sales practices, warranties, refunds, and contracts consumers were pressured into.

Housing & Tenant Answers

Leases, security deposits, repairs, and ending a tenancy early.

Power of Attorney

When one person can sign a binding agreement on another person’s behalf.

Affidavits

How to memorialize what was said and agreed when the contract itself is disputed.

Free Legal Chat

Not sure your issue is a contract issue? Start with the general chat and we will sort it out.

Have the agreement in front of you?

Tell us what it says and what went wrong — free, 24/7, no obligation.

What makes a contract legally binding?

Four things: an offer, an acceptance of that offer, consideration (each side gives up something of value), and no defense to formation such as illegality, fraud, or incapacity. A contract does not have to be written to satisfy these requirements unless it falls within the Statute of Frauds.

What is the Statute of Frauds?

A rule requiring certain contracts to be in writing and signed by the party against whom enforcement is sought. It typically covers real estate transfers and leases longer than a year, agreements that cannot be performed within one year, sales of goods at or above the statutory threshold under UCC section 2-201, promises to pay another person's debt, and agreements made in consideration of marriage.

Is a typed name at the end of an email a valid signature?

It can be. Under the federal E-SIGN Act and state versions of UETA, a typed name, an automatic signature block, or a click-to-accept button can satisfy a signature requirement if the sender intended the mark to authenticate the message and the parties agreed to transact electronically. No particular e-signature vendor or software is required by law.