Review your tender response before you submit it

A tender response can create risk well before any final contract is signed, especially if your response makes commitments about scope, staffing, systems, timeframes, insurance, data handling, or subcontracting that do not match how your business actually operates. For architecture and engineering consultants, those statements can later be read alongside the contract and used to measure performance expectations. A legal review helps identify where your wording may be too broad, inconsistent with the tender terms, or exposing the business to obligations you did not intend to accept.

We usually look at how the response lines up with the tender conditions and the practical way your consultancy delivers work. That can include liability assumptions, indemnity wording, intellectual property positions, confidentiality commitments, information handling statements, subcontractor arrangements, and workforce representations. In architecture and engineering matters, we also pay attention to whether the response overstates design responsibility, review obligations, or deliverables. The drafting should be matched to the commercial arrangement, the documents already in use and the facts around how the work is performed, not just the wording lifted into the response.

The review is shaped around the kinds of legal issues that commonly arise in architecture and engineering engagements rather than treating the tender like a generic sales document. For example, we may look at whether the response creates unintended design liability, whether consultant and subconsultant roles are described consistently, and whether ownership or use rights for plans, models, reports, or project material are clear. We also consider how information is handled in practice, because privacy and confidentiality risk can depend on what your team actually collects, uses and shares during the project.

Templates and commercial bid reviews can be useful for structure and presentation, but they often do not test whether the legal position created by the response matches the tender conditions and your operating model. A response may look polished while still creating exposure around liability caps, personnel commitments, privacy statements, or subcontracting assumptions. This service We will make the key issues clear so you can decide what to do next. It is particularly useful where the tender asks for detailed commitments that may later be treated as part of the contractual framework.

Timing depends on the size of the tender, the submission deadline, and how much supporting material needs to be checked. Usually, we would need the draft response, the tender conditions, any proposed contract, and any specific concerns you want prioritised. After review, we provide comments or a written summary identifying the main legal issues and recommended changes. If your deadline is tight, it is best to raise that early so timing can be confirmed. The fixed-fee covers the review work described on the page, not technical rewriting of the entire bid.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Tender Response Review For Consultants service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.