Set the ground rules for talent management clearly

It becomes particularly important when a manager is sourcing work, negotiating opportunities, handling brand relationships, or taking a commission from the talent's earnings. Without a clear written agreement, there can be confusion about what the manager is authorised to do, whether the arrangement is exclusive, how commission is calculated, and what happens to deals introduced before the relationship ends. Those issues can become contentious quickly in creative industries, especially where image rights, approvals, and ongoing commercial opportunities are involved.

A talent management agreement often covers the manager's role, the talent's obligations, commission percentages, payment timing, exclusivity, approval rights, term length, termination, use of the talent's name or image, confidentiality, and ownership or licensing of content created during the relationship. Some arrangements also need clauses about expenses, conflict management, social media activity, brand approvals, or post-termination commission on deals introduced during the term. The right drafting depends on whether the relationship is broad career management or limited to certain channels, campaigns, or territories.

The drafting usually depends on who the parties are, what type of work the talent does, whether the manager has exclusive rights, how commission is calculated, and how much control the talent keeps over approvals and brand alignment. We also look at whether the manager can sign deals, whether there are minimum performance expectations, and how intellectual property or image rights are handled in connected campaigns. If you already have a proposed agreement, we can review it for clauses that create imbalance, such as broad exclusivity or unclear commission entitlements after termination.

A template may not reflect the way the relationship actually works. Talent management arrangements can vary significantly depending on the industry, the talent's profile, the manager's authority, and whether the work involves endorsements, appearances, content creation, or long-term career development. Generic wording can leave important questions unanswered, including who approves opportunities, what counts as commissionable income, and whether the manager has rights after the relationship ends. A tailored draft or review helps test those points against the real commercial arrangement rather than an abstract example.

Timing depends on whether you need a fresh agreement or a review of a draft already provided by the other side, and on how complex the arrangement is. A straightforward manager-talent relationship with settled commercial terms is usually quicker than a deal involving multiple revenue streams, layered approval rights, or detailed exclusivity provisions. Once we have the relevant information or the existing document, we can indicate likely turnaround. If negotiations continue after the document work is completed, any extra support can be scoped separately.

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 Talent Management Agreement 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.

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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.