Archives for May 2010

I've written previously about signature-automation tools. (For one, see this April 2008 blog post.) Thanks to this post at Lawyerist.com, I see that Adobe has joined the fray, with its eSignatures beta. I haven't yet checked it out; I'd be interested to know what you make of it and, in particular, how you think it stacks up against the competition. … [Read more...]

I concluded my recent post on "good enough" in contract drafting by distinguishing the quality trade-offs inherent in the notion of "good enough" from the question of how risk-averse you want to be in drafting and negotiating deal terms. But those issues are related, in that both require you to determine when you reach the point of diminishing returns in allocating resources. In the case of … [Read more...]

You sometimes see quotation marks used to offset attachment enumeration, as in these two examples from EDGAR: "Excluded Property" shall mean those items of personal property either owned by Executive or to which Executive has exclusive rights and listed on Schedule "1," entitled "Excluded Property," which is attached hereto and made a part hereof. The Stock Option may be exercised, in whole or … [Read more...]

It's not often that the topic of drafting corporate resolutions comes up in my day-to-day activities. That's why I was pleased to receive from one of the participants in my recent Chicago seminar an email that included the following: During lunch I mentioned to you that I had already put into practice the recommendations published in the first edition of your book regarding corporate resolutions. … [Read more...]

During my conversation with Dan Schwartz in connection with yesterday's post about how to express at-will employment, Dan mentioned this post on the Minnesota Labor & Employment Law Blog, by Tiffany Schmidt of Abrams & Schmidt. It describes a Minnesota Court of Appeals case in which a school director challenged his termination. This case provides a useful cautionary tale for contract … [Read more...]

Here's a follow up to this recent post on how best to teach contract drafting at law school. The indefatigable Lisa Solomon told me about this article in the legal-writing journal Perspectives. It's by Sue Payne, a clinical assistant professor of law at Northwestern University School of Law, and it describes how in two 90-minute classes she teaches contract drafting to first-year legal-writing … [Read more...]

It's been ten days since my previous post, but it feels a lot longer—please excuse my silence. It was caused by a combination of travel, short-deadline work, and a perfect storm of technology issues: Hacked website! Viruses! Hardware malfunction! There's nothing like spending hours on the phone with distant technicians of varying competence to take it out of one. To get back into the swing of … [Read more...]

I'm coming late to the discussion of "good enough" in the context of legal services. I've encountered several blog posts that come at this issue from different perspectives, including this one by Carolyn Elefant, this one by Ron Friedmann, and this one by Wayne Schiess. Some of the recent discussion of this topic was prompted by Robert Capps's August 2009 article in Wired magazine, "The Good … [Read more...]