Get the legal foundations right before your startup's first hire starts

The main risk is usually not just missing a contract. It is using documents or assumptions that do not match the real working arrangement. Founders often move quickly, combine multiple responsibilities into one role, or blur the line between employee and contractor arrangements. The factual context can matter as much as the wording in the agreement. If the day-to-day setup, pay structure, IP ownership or onboarding process is unclear, problems can surface later when expectations change, investors review your records, or the relationship ends badly.

It is usually a good fit for founders hiring their first employee, moving from informal help to a proper employment relationship, or deciding whether a role should be structured as employment or contracting. It is especially useful where the person will have access to code, customer relationships, confidential information or core operational knowledge. Early-stage businesses often need more than a template because the first hire can shape how future roles are documented, how IP is captured and how employment practices develop across the team.

Yes. That is one of the most common first-hire questions for startups. Drafting decisions should be based on the arrangement itself, including the documents, responsibilities and factual context, including how much control you will have, how integrated the person will be in the business, and how the work will actually be performed. We can talk through those factors and help you choose the more suitable structure for the role you are creating. This service Your lawyer will explain the practical position and your options in plain English.

Once engaged, we collect the details of the role, the proposed working arrangement and any existing documents or offer terms you have already discussed. A lawyer then prepares the relevant documents and works through the key legal points with you, including entitlements, IP and classification issues. If the role raises extra issues outside the included scope, such as an incentive plan or a dispute with the hire, we can outline separate next steps. The process is intended to give founders a clearer and more usable starting point for hiring.

The service includes a custom employment agreement for the role, an onboarding letter and checklist, advice on KiwiSaver, leave and minimum entitlements, confidentiality and intellectual property provisions, and guidance on whether the proposed arrangement looks more like employment or contracting. You also receive a 30-minute consultation to work through key questions. It is broader than buying a single contract template, but it does not include ongoing HR management, representation in disputes or open-ended support after completion unless separately arranged.

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 Startup First Hire Legal Service service, pricing starts from $1,200.00.

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.