An employment contract lawyer serving Barrie reviews and negotiates employment agreements before you sign them and determines how those terms affect your rights if your job changes or ends.

A contract can affect far more than your salary, title and vacation. It can limit severance, control bonuses and commissions, establish probation, address temporary layoffs, give your employer flexibility to change parts of your job and restrict what you can do after leaving.

Ontario’s Employment Standards Act (ESA) creates minimum rights that an employment agreement can’t take away. But a properly drafted contract can still reduce important common-law rights you would otherwise have, particularly your compensation when employment ends.

Don’t sign first and find out what the agreement means later. The employment lawyers at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP can review a new job offer, a replacement contract from your current employer or an agreement your employer is relying on after termination.

⚠️ Don’t assume an employment contract is harmless because your salary and title look right. Termination, bonus, layoff and post-employment clauses can have financial consequences that don’t become obvious until years later.

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When Should You Call an Employment Contract Lawyer in Barrie?

Speak with an employment contract lawyer before signing an agreement that can materially affect your compensation, severance, job security or ability to work elsewhere.

A contract review is especially useful when:

  • You have received a new job offer
  • Your current employer wants you to sign a new or replacement agreement
  • A promotion or raise comes with a revised contract
  • The contract contains a termination clause limiting severance
  • Bonuses, commissions, equity or stock options form an important part of your income
  • You are moving into a management or executive position
  • The employer wants broad authority to change your duties, schedule or work location
  • You are being asked to accept probation
  • The agreement contains a non-solicitation or non-compete provision
  • You have already been fired and your employer says the contract limits what you are owed

For the underlying legal rules, read our guide to employment contracts in Ontario.

💡 Contract review is most valuable while you still have a choice. Before signing, you can understand the risk and negotiate. After signing, the question often becomes whether your employer can legally enforce the term you already accepted.

What Does a Barrie Employment Contract Lawyer Review?

An employment contract lawyer identifies the terms that create meaningful financial or career consequences and explains what they mean before you agree to them.

At Samfiru Tumarkin LLP, an employment contract review can address:

  • Salary and compensation: Base salary, commissions, bonuses, allowances, incentive plans and equity
  • Termination clauses: What you receive when employment ends and whether the agreement limits common-law severance
  • Probation: Whether probation applies and what happens if your employer ends the relationship during that period
  • Job duties and authority: How much flexibility the employer has to change your title, responsibilities or reporting structure
  • Hours and work location: Whether your schedule, office location or remote-work arrangement can be changed
  • Temporary layoffs: Whether the agreement attempts to give the employer contractual authority to temporarily lay you off
  • Bonuses and commissions: When compensation is earned and what happens if employment ends before payment
  • Fixed-term employment: What happens if the employer ends an agreement before its stated expiry date
  • Post-employment restrictions: Non-solicitation, non-compete, confidentiality and related obligations
  • Resignation: How much contractual notice you are expected to provide if you leave

The goal isn’t to object to every clause. It is to identify the provisions that actually change your legal or financial position.

Should a Lawyer Review Your Job Offer Before You Sign?

Yes, especially when the agreement limits severance, contains restrictive terms or governs significant bonus, commission or equity compensation.

Most employees naturally focus on salary, title, vacation and benefits. Those terms matter. But some of the most financially important provisions in an employment agreement only become relevant when the relationship ends.

A termination clause that seems unimportant when you start a job can determine whether you later receive minimum statutory compensation or substantially greater common-law severance.

Can an employment lawyer negotiate your job offer?

Yes. An employment lawyer can identify the terms worth negotiating and help you propose practical changes before accepting the position.

Depending on the job, negotiations can address:

  • Guaranteed termination or severance protection
  • Salary
  • Signing bonuses
  • Bonus and commission terms
  • Equity or stock options
  • Vacation
  • Remote or hybrid work
  • Work location
  • Probation
  • Post-employment restrictions

Not every clause needs to become a negotiation. A useful contract review helps you focus on the provisions that create meaningful risk.

Should you leave your current job before reviewing the new contract?

Don’t resign from secure employment until you understand the complete offer you are accepting.

If a prospective employer says a more detailed employment agreement will follow, ask to see it before making an irreversible decision about your current job.

Review any conditions attached to the offer as well. These can include references, background checks, start dates or other requirements that need to be satisfied before the new employment is secure.

⚠️ Don’t resign from one job based only on a verbal offer or a short offer letter if the employer says a detailed contract is still coming. Review the complete terms before making a permanent move.

What If Your Current Employer Asks You to Sign a New Contract?

Don’t sign a replacement agreement until you know what existing rights it changes and what you are receiving in return.

A long-serving employee can already have valuable rights that aren’t obvious from the original paperwork. A replacement contract can attempt to reduce those rights by adding an ESA-only termination clause, temporary-layoff provision, broader job-change language or post-employment restriction.

Ontario law also recognizes that materially new contractual terms introduced after employment has already begun can require fresh consideration—something new of value given to the employee in exchange for accepting the new agreement.

What can count as fresh consideration?

Fresh consideration means something new of legal value rather than simply receiving what your employer already owed you.

A raise, bonus, promotion or another new benefit can be relevant, but whether it supports the replacement agreement depends on the facts and wording. Have the existing and proposed contracts reviewed together.

⚠️ A raise or promotion can come with a contract that sharply reduces your future severance. Don’t focus only on what the employer is giving you today. Check what the new agreement takes away if your employment ends later.

What if you refuse to sign?

Refusing to sign a proposed employment contract does not mean that you have resigned.

Your employer then has to decide how it wants to proceed. It can continue the existing relationship, make another proposal or end the employment relationship in accordance with the law.

Don’t resign because you disagree with the proposed terms. Have your existing contract, the replacement agreement and any instructions from your employer reviewed first.

How Can a Termination Clause Affect Your Severance?

An enforceable termination clause can substantially reduce the compensation you receive when your employer terminates your employment.

Without an enforceable contractual limit, many non-unionized Ontario employees have common-law reasonable-notice rights. Those rights can provide substantially more compensation than Ontario’s statutory minimums.

A properly drafted agreement can limit those greater common-law rights, but it can’t provide less than the minimum entitlements required by the ESA.

Read our current guide to enforceable termination clauses in Ontario.

💡 2026 update: Don’t rely on old advice saying that “at any time” automatically invalidates an Ontario termination clause. The Ontario Court of Appeal has rejected that position. The clause must be read as a whole to determine whether it actually contracts out of the ESA or validly preserves the employee’s minimum statutory rights.

In Baker v. Van Dolder’s Home Team Inc.; Li v. Wayfair Canada ULC, 2026 ONCA 568, the Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed that phrases such as “at any time” and “at any time and for any reason” do not, by themselves, make a termination clause unenforceable.

What if you’ve already been fired?

Have the employment contract reviewed again before accepting your employer’s severance calculation.

Signing a contract does not prove that every termination provision is enforceable. If the clause validly limits your rights, it can control what you receive. If it doesn’t, common-law reasonable notice can apply instead.

Depending on factors such as your age, position, length of service and the availability of comparable employment, severance can reach 24 months’ pay in appropriate cases.

Learn more about severance pay in Ontario.

⚠️ Don’t sign a termination release because your employer says the contract limits you to ESA minimums. Have the employment agreement and severance package reviewed first. Once you sign a release, you usually can’t go back and claim additional compensation.

What Other Employment Contract Terms Should You Review?

Review any provision that can affect your compensation, job security or ability to work elsewhere after leaving the employer.

Non-compete clauses

Ontario prohibits employers from entering into most new non-compete agreements with employees. The prohibition applies to agreements entered into on or after October 25, 2021, subject to statutory exceptions that include certain executives and qualifying arrangements connected to the sale of a business.

If a proposed contract tries to prevent you from working for a competitor after you leave, read our guide to non-compete clauses in Ontario.

Non-solicitation clauses

Ontario’s statutory ban on non-compete agreements does not itself prohibit non-solicitation clauses. These provisions can restrict how you approach clients, customers or coworkers after employment ends, so the wording should be reviewed before you accept it.

Probation clauses

Don’t assume that being called “probationary” means you can automatically be terminated without rights.

Review how the agreement establishes probation, how long the period lasts and what it says about termination. The contract still operates within Ontario’s minimum employment standards. Read more about probation periods in Ontario.

Fixed-term agreements

A fixed-term contract needs careful review because ending it before the stated expiry date can create significant compensation consequences.

Before accepting a one-year, two-year or project-based agreement, understand whether the employer can end it early and what the termination provision says you will receive.

Bonuses, commissions and equity

Variable compensation deserves careful review when it forms an important part of your income.

Check when a bonus or commission becomes earned, what happens if employment ends before a payment date and how stock options or other equity are treated on termination.

Why Choose Samfiru Tumarkin LLP for an Employment Contract Review in Barrie?

Samfiru Tumarkin LLP reviews employment contracts from the employee’s perspective: what you are receiving, what rights you are giving up and what the agreement means if the relationship eventually ends.

Our Barrie employment lawyers can help non-unionized employees in Barrie:

  • Understand employment agreements in plain English
  • Identify clauses that create meaningful financial risk
  • Review termination provisions under current Ontario law
  • Negotiate important terms before accepting a job
  • Assess replacement contracts introduced during existing employment
  • Review whether fresh consideration supports new contractual restrictions
  • Assess bonus, commission and equity provisions
  • Review non-solicitation and other post-employment restrictions
  • Determine whether an employer can rely on the contract after termination

Samfiru Tumarkin LLP’s employment lawyers serve employees throughout Barrie, including Allandale, Mapleview, Bayfield, Letitia Heights, Holly, Ardagh Bluffs, Tollendal, Painswick, Downtown Barrie and the East End.

What should you send for a contract review?

Send the complete agreement and any separate documents that form part of your compensation or employment terms.

Useful documents include:

  • The employment agreement or job offer
  • Any previous contracts with the same employer
  • Bonus or commission plans
  • Stock-option or equity documents
  • Promotion or compensation letters
  • Confidentiality or restrictive-covenant agreements
  • Emails explaining why a replacement agreement must be signed
  • A termination letter and severance package if your employment has already ended
💡 You don’t need to identify every legal issue yourself before asking for a review. Send the complete agreement. A clause that looks routine can affect another part of the contract in a way that isn’t obvious when the provisions are read separately.
⚠️ Unionized? Your employment terms are primarily governed by your collective agreement. Workplace disputes must be addressed through your union and the grievance process. Samfiru Tumarkin LLP’s employment law team can’t assist with unionized workplace disputes.

An employment agreement can affect your income, job security, future career options and the compensation you receive when your employment ends. Reviewing it before you sign gives you the best opportunity to understand and negotiate those consequences.

The Barrie employment lawyers at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP help non-unionized employees in Barrie review and negotiate job offers, assess replacement contracts introduced during employment and determine whether employers can rely on contractual restrictions after termination.

Before you resign from another job, sign a new employment agreement, accept a replacement contract or agree that a termination clause limits your severance, contact Samfiru Tumarkin LLP and have the contract reviewed.

Review Your Employment Contract Before You Sign

Samfiru Tumarkin LLP can identify terms that affect your severance, compensation and future career before you commit to the agreement.

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