Executive Assistant 101 Template

In plain language: Identifies the employer and the executive assistant as legal parties, states the job title, and records the official first day of employment.

Common mistake: Using a trade name rather than the employer's registered legal entity name — making it difficult to enforce IP assignment or confidentiality obligations against the correct legal entity.

In plain language: Describes the core responsibilities of the role — calendar management, travel coordination, correspondence, and special projects — and identifies who the assistant reports to.

Common mistake: Defining duties so narrowly that routine task expansion requires a contract amendment — or so broadly that performance management becomes impossible when specific deliverables are disputed.

In plain language: States the base salary or hourly rate, payment frequency, bonus eligibility, benefits entitlements, and the policy for reimbursing work-related expenses.

Common mistake: Detailing specific benefit plan coverage inside the contract body — when plans change annually, locked-in specifics create amendment obligations or unmet expectations.

In plain language: Prohibits the assistant from disclosing or misusing the employer's confidential information — including executive communications, financial data, personnel matters, and strategic plans — during and after employment.

Common mistake: Failing to include personal or household information in the definition of 'Confidential Information' for EAs supporting senior executives — leaving private calendar details, travel itineraries, and family matters unprotected.

In plain language: Assigns to the employer all documents, templates, systems, or processes the executive assistant creates in connection with their role.

Common mistake: Omitting an IP assignment clause entirely on the assumption that an administrative role produces no valuable IP — ignoring that custom workflow systems, communication templates, and contact databases have real business value.

In plain language: Requires the assistant to disclose any outside employment, business interests, or personal relationships that could create a conflict with their duties.

Common mistake: No conflict-of-interest clause at all — particularly risky for EAs who manage vendor relationships, authorize purchases, or control access to the executive's financial accounts.

In plain language: Extends non-disclosure obligations specifically to personal information about the executive and their family — travel schedules, medical appointments, household staff, and financial accounts.

Common mistake: Treating personal executive information identically to standard business confidentiality — EAs often need an explicit clause covering household, medical, and personal-finance data because courts apply different standards to personal versus corporate information.

In plain language: Sets the notice period required for voluntary resignation or employer-initiated termination, conditions that allow immediate termination for cause, and the severance formula.

Common mistake: A severance formula that falls below statutory minimums in the applicable jurisdiction — the statutory floor applies regardless of what the contract says, and a lower number can void the release the employer sought in exchange.

In plain language: Specifies which jurisdiction's employment law governs the agreement and how disputes are handled — mediation, arbitration, or litigation.

Common mistake: Choosing a governing law with no meaningful connection to where the assistant actually performs work — several jurisdictions apply local employment law regardless of the chosen governing law clause.

In plain language: Confirms the written contract is the complete and exclusive record of agreed terms, superseding all prior discussions, offer letters, and verbal promises.

Common mistake: No entire-agreement clause, allowing the assistant to introduce prior email exchanges or verbal promises as contractual terms that override the written document.

An executive assistant agreement is a legally binding employment contract between an employer and an executive assistant that defines the terms of their working relationship — duties, compensation, confidentiality obligations, IP assignment, and termination conditions. Unlike a general offer letter, it creates enforceable protections around the sensitive information an EA routinely handles and eliminates ambiguity about what the assistant can and cannot do with that information after leaving.

A written agreement is not always legally required, but it is strongly recommended for any EA role. Executive assistants typically access sensitive executive communications, financial records, personal schedules, and strategic plans. Without a written agreement, the employer has no enforceable confidentiality or IP assignment obligations, and termination disputes are resolved by jurisdiction-specific defaults — usually more favorable to the employee.

At minimum: parties and job title, start date, duties and reporting structure, compensation and benefits, confidentiality and non-disclosure, IP assignment, conflict-of-interest obligations, personal-information protections, termination notice periods, severance formula, and governing law. EA-specific agreements should go further than standard employment contracts by explicitly covering personal and household information, financial account access controls, and the executive's private schedule.

In some cases, yes — but misclassification risk is high for EA roles. Tax authorities in the US, Canada, and the UK apply multi-factor tests that look at behavioral control, financial control, and the type of relationship. An EA who works exclusively for one employer, follows a set schedule, and uses employer-provided equipment is almost always an employee. Misclassifying an EA as a contractor triggers back taxes, penalties, and benefit liability. Use an independent contractor agreement only when the role genuinely meets the contractor criteria in your jurisdiction.

An executive assistant should be contractually bound to protect business confidential information — executive communications, financial data, client and vendor relationships, and strategic plans — as well as personal information about the executive and their family, including travel itineraries, medical appointments, household staff details, and personal financial accounts. Confidentiality obligations typically survive termination and should be written to extend for the lifetime of the information or a defined number of years.

Two to four weeks is the standard notice period for EA roles in the US. In Canada, provincial Employment Standards Acts set statutory minimums of one week per year of service (typically capped at eight weeks), and common-law notice for long-tenured employees can run significantly higher. In the UK, the statutory minimum is one week per year of service after two years, capped at 12 weeks. The written agreement should match or exceed the applicable statutory minimum.

Post-employment non-competes for EAs are generally harder to enforce than for senior executives because the assistant typically does not hold proprietary competitive knowledge of the kind courts consider necessary to justify restricting future employment. A well-drafted confidentiality and non-disclosure clause with a clear definition of protected information provides more reliable and enforceable protection in most jurisdictions than a broad non-compete.

In common-law jurisdictions — including the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia — a contract requires fresh consideration to be enforceable. An employee who has already started work has given nothing new in exchange for post-start restrictions, meaning confidentiality obligations and IP assignment clauses signed after day one may be voided by a court. The fix is to execute before or on the first day of work, or to provide documented additional compensation — a bonus, salary increase, or extra leave — as fresh consideration at the time of signing.

The governing law should be the jurisdiction where the assistant primarily performs work — typically the state or province of the employer's principal office or the assistant's home location for remote roles. Several jurisdictions apply their local employment law regardless of what the contract specifies — California, for example, applies its own labor code to any work performed in the state. In cross-border arrangements, legal review is recommended to confirm which jurisdiction's mandatory employment standards apply.