The agreements
Two agreements, in plain words.
You sign one with Maison Milentis. Each Expert signs another. This page explains what each one says and where they meet.
Below is a walk-through in plain English. Both agreements are published in full, and you can read the actual language at any point.
Everything passes through us. Nothing passes directly.
Obligations do run between the two sides: that is the point of engaging an Expert at all. What does not happen is any of it running directly. Four things route through Maison Milentis instead, and each one is worth stating separately.
The contract
You have no contract with any Expert, and no Expert has one with you. You contract with us. Each Expert contracts with us. Neither of you owes the other directly, and neither can enforce the other's agreement. What each side is owed comes through us: the next section shows how.
Our Client Agreement, clauses 2.2 and 31.1 · Our Expert Agreement, clauses 3.1 and 18.5
The instruction
We direct the Expert's work. You set the question and the scope in the statement of work. From there the Expert answers to us, and no Client may shape what a deliverable says.
Our Client Agreement, clause 2.3(b) · Our Expert Agreement, clauses 3.1 and 12.4
The money
You pay us before the work begins. We pay the Expert from money already in our hands, whatever they conclude. Nothing of value passes directly between you and the Expert in either direction, and both agreements forbid it.
Our Client Agreement, clauses 6.1(f) and 8.3 · Our Expert Agreement, clauses 7.2 and 7.6
The information
Your commercial objectives are not passed to any Expert as instructions. The Expert's name does not reach you until they consent to it, for you by name. All communication about an engagement goes through us. Your agreement calls this an information barrier; the Expert's calls the same thing a compliance wall.
Our Client Agreement, clause 10.5 · Our Expert Agreement, clause 11.5
Where the two agreements meet.
You have no contract with the Expert, so you cannot enforce anything against them directly. What makes your rights real is that everything you are promised in your agreement is something the Expert has separately undertaken in theirs. The same holds in reverse: the Expert's protections are real without a contract with you.
You are promised every Expert is engaged under an agreement carrying confidentiality, independence and sole-payer obligations.
The Expert has undertaken confidentiality; an honest opinion that no request to alter it can change; and no payment from any Client.
The Expert is promised no Client may direct the content, emphasis or conclusions of a deliverable.
You have undertaken not to instruct or supervise any Expert.
The Expert is promised their name is released only with their specific written consent, given for you by name.
You have undertaken not to try to identify an Expert whose name we have not released.
You are promised Honoraria are not contingent on any conclusion an Expert reaches.
The Expert is promised the same. Delivery, not content, is the condition of payment.
What continues after an engagement, and what does not.
There is no non-circumvention clause in any of our terms. Once an Expert has been named to you and every engagement involving them has ended, nothing stops you working with them directly.
Two things continue. Communication about that engagement still goes through us. And you may not use anything we gave you to identify an Expert whose name was never released.
Our Client Agreement, clause 12.2 · Our Expert Agreement, clauses 11.5 and 15.5(c) · Our Pre-Engagement Terms, clause 4.2
The changelog
Both agreements have been changed by readers.
A prospective Client objected. The clause came out.
Our first draft Pre-Engagement Terms, dated 29 July 2026, carried a non-circumvention clause. For twelve months after an introduction, a prospective Client could not approach, engage or pay that Expert except through us.
A prospective Client declined to sign because of it. We concluded it served neither Clients nor Experts, and removed non-circumvention from the Pre-Engagement Terms and from both agreements before any of them was signed.
The draft is still published, beside the clause that replaced it.
Draft of 29 July 2026, never accepted · Our Pre-Engagement Terms, clause 4 · the changelog
An Expert proposed a different approach. We adopted it.
Under version 2a of the Expert Services Agreement, an Expert who contracted through their own company was jointly and severally liable with it. An Expert reading the agreement before signing proposed a different approach: that the entity alone should carry the money.
We agreed. Version 2b rewrote clause 3.4 and added clause 14.5. Where an Expert contracts through an entity they hold, every sum payable to us is payable by that entity alone, and the two share a single liability cap. Non-monetary remedies against the Expert personally remain.
That is now the position for any Expert who contracts through an entity rather than personally. Both earlier versions are still published, beside the current one.
Our Expert Agreement, version 2a, clause 3.4 · Our Expert Agreement, version 2b, clauses 3.4 and 14.5 · Our Expert Agreement, clauses 3.4 and 14.5 · the changelog
We expect these terms to keep changing.
Both agreements have already been changed by people reading them before they signed. We would rather that continued than not.
When we change the terms, the new version is what everyone signs from then on. It does not reach an engagement already under way. Your own terms change only if you agree in writing and both of us sign.
Every version stays published. If you read something in either agreement that you think is wrong, tell us.
Our Client Agreement, clause 17.1 · Our Expert Agreement, clause 19.1 · /controls 21, 22, 23 · the changelog
You sign the terms once.
Each side signs the framework agreement once. After that, one document is signed per engagement, a schedule on your side and a statement of work on the Expert's. Each carries the particulars of its own engagement alone: scope, timing, fee.
The standard terms are not renegotiated each time. They sit behind every engagement, and they change only if both of us sign a change in writing.
One difference between the two sides, stated plainly. An Expert's statement of work cannot alter the standard terms at all: where the two disagree, the standard terms govern and the statement of work has no effect. Your schedule can, but only where it names the clause it is changing, and only for that one engagement. It does not amend your agreement for any other purpose, and it does not touch what any Expert has signed.
Our Client Agreement, clauses 4.2, 17.1 and 17.2 · Our Expert Agreement, clause 1.4 · /controls 22
Reading further.
- What your agreement says, question by questionfor Clients
- What the Expert's agreement saysfor Experts
- What our system refuses to dothe controls
- The full text of both agreements, every versionagreements.maisonmilentis.com