2009/5/26 Andrew Turvey andrewrturvey@googlemail.com:
WMUK has to consider the pros and cons of getting legal advice on this. It is not a requirement - after all, we signed the original agreement without advice, didn't we? This is an internal agreement between two entities within the broader "Wikimedia community". I guess this means it is less likely that we will get pro-bono advice. In that case, where would we get the money? The Foundation is unlikely to pay for it, and our current level of donations and subscriptions means we're unlikely to have the funds ourselves.
The original agreement was more of a license than a two-way contract. We got to use the name "Wikimedia UK" and we didn't have to give up much in exchange. There wasn't a great deal to get advice on. We did, however, run it by the friendly barrister, I believe - informal legal advice was sufficient for such a simple agreement. The new version is not simple in the slightest and it expects us to give up a lot (including our independence, which I think makes it bordering on unconscionable), so a greater amount of legal advice is required.
I doubt we would get anyone to agree to help us with just this, but that isn't what we really need. We need permanent ongoing legal representation, this agreement would be just one part of what they do. We need to find a lawyer or law firm that will represent us in the long term, preferably pro-bono.
The main issues we are dealing with are the basics of "what kind of relationship" and "what kind of control" do we want the agreement to embody? These issues can be discussed with the Foundation and decided without the involvement of any lawyers.
But there are lawyers involved, on the foundation's side. If you have a negotiation with lawyers on one side and just laymen on the other, the laymen are in serious trouble. A simple read of the proposed agreement will tell you that the foundation doesn't have our best interests in mind in this, they are thinking of themselves, we need to think of ourselves.