Check whether your arrangement could be treated like a franchise

It helps to think about this as a targeted advice service rather than broad franchise support. We look at the arrangement you want checked, such as a licence, branded operator model, distribution setup or management arrangement, and assess whether its features may point toward franchise-style risk. That usually includes reviewing the documents you provide, discussing how the relationship works in practice, and giving written advice on the main issues identified. It is a one-off advice service, so ongoing representation or a full restructure project would be separate work if needed.

The short answer is that it suits businesses that have one arrangement they want tested, rather than those needing a wider audit across multiple documents or operators. It is often useful if you license a brand, provide operating systems, charge ongoing fees, or exercise a level of control over how another party runs their business. It can also help if you are expanding into multiple sites and want advice before repeating the same model. If your setup is already complex across several counterparties, a broader review may be more appropriate.

Not always in absolute terms, because the answer depends heavily on how the arrangement operates in practice as well as what the documents say. For example, a model that looks light-touch on paper can still create risk if the day-to-day reality involves strong brand control, mandatory systems, training requirements or ongoing payments. Our role is to assess the available information, explain the indicators that matter, and help you assess and reduce risk. That is different from giving a blanket assurance that no franchise issue could ever arise.

Broader work is often needed where the issue is not just one clause or one agreement, but the overall business model. For example, if you use several linked documents, provide detailed operating manuals, license trade marks, and collect recurring fees from multiple operators, a single advice session may identify issues that need follow-up drafting or structural changes. In that situation, we can help with revised agreements or wider franchise-related support under a separate scope. This page is intentionally narrower than a broader accidental franchising consult, so the fixed-fee stays tied to one-off legal advice.

After the consultation and review, you receive advice that explains the key risk points and the practical options available based on the arrangement described to us. In some matters, the next step may be small wording changes to reduce ambiguity. In others, the structure itself may need more substantial changes if the commercial model leans too heavily toward franchise characteristics. If you want us to help with amendments, a restructure, or replacement documents, that can be quoted as follow-on work. The original fixed-fee is for the advice piece itself, not the later implementation work.

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 Accidental Franchising Legal Advice 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.