The Missed Risk In My First Consulting Gig: My Own Boundaries

Disclaimer: This post is a personal reflection and does not constitute legal advice. Every situation is different — if you need legal advice, speak to a qualified lawyer.

In my last blog post, I wrote about my first consulting gig: a small service business with an ambitious Scope of Work, decent Terms and Conditions but with liability completely out of proportion to the fee. That piece focused on the business risk.

Today I’m going to talk about my own risk.

Underneath my advice, there was a solid lesson for me: I didn't scope my own work. I was so happy to have something to do that I ignored my usual boundaries.

Happy to have work, so I skipped the basics

Context matters. I was out of work. My identity for years had been “busy, in demand, on big deals”. Then suddenly I was at home, thinking about portfolio work, writing, posting on LinkedIn, trying to work out what was next.

So when a friend asked if I could help a small business with their T&Cs, I jumped. I told myself it was straightforward: one pass, one round of comments, a lunch and a testimonial in return. I even spotted that the client’s Scope of Work was too aspirational for the tiny fee they were charging.

The irony is obvious in hindsight. I was criticising their lack of boundaries while having none of my own.

The “one pass” turned into multiple rounds of tracked changes, back and forth on wording and several sets of “quick questions” that were anything but. The clients were polite and genuinely appreciative. The problem was not them. It was me.

Why free work needs stricter boundaries than paid work

When I was a law firm partner, scoping was automatic. What is included, what is out of scope, who is doing what, how far we go before there is a new fee discussion. We would not start without that. With this pro bono job, I dropped all of it. I was just glad someone wanted my help and I did not want to push back.

That combination is dangerous. You want to be useful. You are flattered to be asked. You tell yourself “it is only a few hours”. So you let the scope drift and only realise how much time you have given away when you start to feel resentful.

The problem wasn’t the free work. The problem was the unbounded free work. 

What I would do differently next time

If I was offered the same “favour” tomorrow, I would still probably say yes. I am in a position to help people and friends. But I would handle it very differently. I would scope it properly, even if it is free. One short email or message saying something like: “Happy to do a one-off review of your SOW and T&Cs with one round of follow-up comments. Beyond that we can talk about a paid engagement.”

I would also set a clear deadline to something concrete: one round of comments, or up to a certain number of hours, or a specific date. And I would have a simple on-ramp to paid work. Not a big sales pitch. Just a line I am comfortable using: “We have gone as far as we can on a free basis. If you want to keep going, my usual rate is [X] and we can set up a short, fixed-fee piece of work.”

None of this is magic. But it will force me to treat my time with the same respect I would treat my clients’ risk.

Why this matters for solo and fractional professionals

Inside a law firm, scope is protected by process.  Inside a fund or a company, there is usually a mandate and a hierarchy. As a solo consultant or fractional GC, there is no system protecting you from yourself. Saying “yes” feels good in the moment. Quiet resentment a week later does not. Enough of that, and you start to hate the work you actually want to build a career around.

Getting this right early is not just about time. It’s about your reputation. If you repeatedly give away unbounded free work, you train people to see you as accessible, but not necessarily as a serious professional whose time has a price.

Bringing it back to the original lesson

In the original case study, I wrote about aligning contracts with reality: SOW and T&Cs that match what the business actually does, for a fee that matches the risk. The same rule applies to us as professionals. Your external documents should match reality. Your internal boundaries should too. If your contracts are tight but you quietly give away time because you are just happy to be asked, there is still risk on the table. It is just sitting with you instead of your client.

If this feels uncomfortably familiar, you are not alone. I am still figuring it out. But the next time a “quick favour” lands in your inbox, try writing down the scope, the end-point and the on-ramp to paid work. That’s what I’ll be doing.

Update [feedback]: Matching expectations is a two-way job

After I shared this post with the friend who referred the work, he made a fair point: clearer boundaries would have helped them too.

If I had been explicit up front about the level of review I was prepared to do on the SOW, it would have allowed them to set expectations internally and consolidate feedback for one focused discussion. Instead, my limits were something they had to infer “between the lines”, which is not ideal.

My takeaway: boundaries are not just a cap on time. They are a shared process. Next time I do a favour or a small fixed-fee piece, I will be clearer on (a) what I will review, (b) how many rounds, (c) how feedback should be provided (one consolidated set), and (d) what “done” looks like.

Disclaimer: This post is a personal reflection and does not constitute legal advice. Every situation is different — if you need legal advice, speak to a qualified lawyer.

Questions? Comments? I’d like to hear if you’ve seen similar patterns in your own business. Subscribe to the blog or email me: contact@browngeek.net.