COVID-19 is Here to Stay for a While: Online and Offline Legal Essentials to Protect Yourself

Best Legal Practices for Yoga Professionals during Covid-19

Studio Reopening 101: what legal documents and legal considerations to have updated?

First of all you need a properly drafted waiver of liability (what to include in it…hint: most insurance companies do NOT cover COVID)

A waiver of liability’s purpose is to have someone sign away their legal rights in the case they  bring an action against. This is the foundational document for your business. The distinguishing point between a great waiver of liability and a weak one is how specific the agreement is drafted towards those activities or the risks of those activities. It protects you and all of your assets.

Specifics of the Waiver of Liability:

Remember it is all about how it is drafted. It should be specific enough that if someone gets injured while doing the activity with you, you did tell them beforehand what they would be doing. 

1. Describing the Specific Activities 
2. Listing the the Risks of the Activities
3. Describing the Outcomes of those Specific Risks 
4. After you have detailed the activities, risks of the activity, and the outcome of the specific risks in the document, it is important to make sure the participant affirms they are healthy enough to do these activities. When it comes to Covid related things, we need to include statements such as “I have not been in contact with anyone who has been sick” “I have been in self-quarantine”
5. Next is an Agreement to Participate in the Activities 
6. Finally a Signature where they are Acknowledging they are Signing Away their Legal Rights

Contact Conscious Counsel and they can help prepare these documents. 

Revisiting Employee Agreements (employee vs. contractor) and how to communicate effectively with your team.

What’s changed during the time of covid  is most studios had a model where they had a lot of contractors who would teach 2-3 times per week to maybe 2-4 times a month. Generally, in the government’s eyes it comes down to control over staff, the more control you have over a contractor the more they are an employee.

A contractor is someone who operates their own business. For example, Conscious Counsel’s graphic designer. They operate a law firm and Mallory does the design. She has her own hours, rates etc. 

The risks of misclassifying a contractor is you run the risk of a potential audit. Governments have made laws to protect workers in particular circumstances, so if you really are going to treat someone as an employee just hire them as an employee, yes it is more expensive but you have more control of what they do and how they do it.

Cory encourages everyone to be more flexible in the way these relationships of employee/contractor work. Things are much different now and you must relook at these relationships and agreements to best fit the landscape we are in. 

Practicing Online & Going Virtual: How to protect yourself  (social media/website disclaimer + privacy policy).

Privacy policies are quite straightforward. These policies have to do with compliance. Governments all across the world require that you let your customers know exactly what you will be doing with their information. If you use softwares like Stripe or MindBody even though you are not the ones technically collecting this information, at law you still have to let people know who is going to be processing the payment and put a link to their privacy policy on your site. 

Terms of Service are the rules for someone interacting with your website. Unless you have these rules written down it can become very difficult to enforce this. Examples include refund policy, trademark policy, return policy ect. In the event you need to enforce your rights, all you have to do is take a screenshot of your terms of service.

Now in regards to online disclaimers, lots of people are practicing on Zoom, Instagram Live, Facebook live and because you don’t know who is tuning in you cannot get everyone to sign a waiver of liability. So, it is very important to link a disclaimer to your website that includes your qualifications, where you got your certifications, etc.. Also, you want to have information on things like, you don’t diagnose diseases, you don’t provide medications, there is no guarantee for results. 

In law there is something called the Duty of Care meaning when you are facilitating an activity for someone you have a duty to make sure they are going to be safe during the activity. Because there are more online classes than ever, you don’t have the chance to get everyone to sign a waiver of liability so you want to make sure you have a form of protection which would be your online disclaimer.

Practicing Proactive Law.

Cory like to say you must be in control of the relationships that you have. The best way to do this is having awesome legal documents so you are not letting someone else drive the wheel of a situation. It has never been more important to invest the time to protect all the assets that you already have. Get the proper legal documents to cover yourself in any event. 

Questions from the Webinar: