EXPERT RESPONSE
To legally change any portion of any type of written
agreement, one must look to the original agreement to see
if there are terms governing changes. In most written
agreements you will find a section that states that
changes to the agreement must be in writing (and signed by
both parties). This prevents one side from changing the
terms and/or conditions of the contract without
notification to and agreement from the other side.
The formal term for this is "executing an amendment." A
proper amendment will state with specificity the agreement
it's modifying, the parties who are doing the modification
(which should be the same parties who signed the original
agreement), the date of the modification, the specifics of
the changes to be made, the number of the amendment, (is it
the first? Tenth? Fiftieth?) and a final statement that
anything NOT modified in the amendment stays the way it is
in the original agreement.
Amendments can also take a few different forms. They can
be single or multiple pages (depending on the scope of the
change(s)). They can be "form" documents created for
regularly-changed documents (like a Change Order to a
Statement of Work). And they can also be in the form of a
letter, signed and sent by one party but then
countersigned by the recipient.
It is lastly important to remember, amendments must be
treated as part of the original contract - for once they
are executed, it is as if the original contract contains
all of the amendments made subsequent (and amendments are
applied in the order that they are executed). Forgetting
to consider amendments when reviewing contracts is a
frequent source of mistakes when interpreting agreements.
Good luck!
~Jeff
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