In A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting 12.21, I recommend that you use only one space, rather than two, after punctuation, whether it separates two sentences (periods, question marks, exclamation marks) or parts of a sentence (colons). I’m hardly alone in this. The Chicago Manual of Style 2.12 (15th ed. 2003) says “A single [...]
In August I posted this item about the dispute between Rogers Communications Inc. and Aliant Inc. (now Bell Aliant Regional Communications) regarding the role of a comma in a contract provision. I know that this dispute has received a lot of attention, but I was nevertheless surprised to see an article about it in today’s [...]
In my recent post on hold harmless I quoted the Black’s Law Dictionary definition of indemnify: “1. To reimburse (another) for a loss suffered because of a third party’s or one’s own act or default. 2. To promise to reimburse (another) for such a loss. 3. To give (another) security against such a loss.”) This [...]
Osgoode Hall Law School’s Professional Development Program told me yesterday that they’re no longer accepting registrations for my November 6–7 drafting workshop in Toronto—it’s sold out! They are, however, starting to accept registrations for the next one, which will be on April 30–May 1, 2007. There are still openings for my seminars in Geneva, Switzerland. [...]
At a seminar I gave last week, I suggested that hold harmless and indemnify are essentially synonyms. Some participants were skeptical, so I thought I’d better research the issue. Black’s Law Dictionary supports my view. It defines hold harmless as follows: “To absolve (another party) from any responsibility for damage or other liability arising from [...]
Last week I received an analysis of the 2006 amendments to the Delaware General Corporation Law. That reminded me of my one manuscript that never came close to becoming a published article—my critique of drafting usages in the DGCL. I wrote this manuscript about three years ago, when I was flailing around, seeking some way—any [...]
MSCD is a reference work rather than a textbook, so it doesn’t contain any teaching materials. That has probably prevented some teachers of contract drafting from using it as a course book. I’ve contemplated making available online a complete set of teaching materials, but that will have to wait. In the meantime, though, I can [...]
Today I encountered another form of rhetorical emphasis to add to those noted in MSCD 13.37–38 and in my previous post on the subject. This is from a software license agreement: Licensor shall NOT indemnify, defend or hold Licensee harmless from and against any loss, cost, damage, liability, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) suffered [...]
Recently someone from the plain-English camp chided me for disagreeing with “the more progressive view” that one should avoid shall in contract drafting. Such potshots are, I suppose, inevitable if you publish enough, and they’re best ignored. But what good is a blog if one can’t occasionally use it to set matters straight? So here [...]
Last week I held an all-day seminar for a group of lawyers from a big company. A good time was had by all—they asked plenty of questions and apparently came away thinking that my approach had real merit. Given that I recently posted an item suggesting how law-firm associates might navigate obstacles to change in [...]
Today, for the heck of it, I investigated the difference between guaranty and guarantee. Here’s what Bryan Garner says in A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage (1995): The distinction in BrE once was that the former [guarantee] is the verb, the latter [guaranty] the noun. Yet guarantee is now commonly used as both n. & [...]
