I’ve been reading Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000, rev. ed. 2020). It’s about how Americans have become increasingly disconnected from one another and how our social structures have disintegrated. (Yeah, it’s that upbeat.) Surprisingly, it has something to say about contracts. Generalized Reciprocity Chapter 8 (Reciprocity, Honesty, and Trust) is about generalized … Read More
I’ve just complete a project using AI, namely Claude. It involved linguistics. I’m new to using AI seriously; I first used Claude only a month ago. AI has been mostly irrelevant to what I do. When I write, generally it’s to offer a new take. AI doesn’t seem good at novelty. For one thing, it’s too contaminated by contracts conventional … Read More
This image is from a public-company merger agreement. I highlighted those components that complexify contracts. Different levels of enumerated clauses. Cross-references. Parentheticals. Exceptions. Conditions. I think “the sprawl” is a suitable term for this sort of contracts complexification. (I’m not suggesting that this example is anything exceptional.) Sprawl connotes unplanned, incremental, and undistinguished growth. “Complexification” is a neutral term—complexity doesn’t … Read More
Antecedent ambiguity is a distinct kind of ambiguity. As MSCD says, “Confusion can arise if it’s not clear what the antecedent is of a given element.” MSCD offers as an example of antecedent ambiguity John read Bill’s email, and he is furious. The antecedent of he could be either John or Bill. Today I found another instances of antecedent ambiguity. … Read More
In this recent blog post, I emphasize the importance of offsetting commas in right node raising. (“Right node raising” is a linguistics term used to describe a sentence in which two or more coordinated clauses each end with a shared constituent, as in Himari likes, and Jorge dislikes, blueberry pie.) But offsetting commas in right node raising can lead to … Read More
I expect that regular readers of this blog are familiar with syntactic ambiguity. An example: cats and dogs with brown fur. Does that refer to all cats, or just those with brown fur? It can’t hurt to repeat my new, improved definition of syntactic ambiguity, which I first trotted out in a post last month and have just now tweaked … Read More
I sent a contact my first draft of an article about—what else!—dysfunctional mainstream contract language. In the modern way, my contact fed my draft to Claude, to see what Claude thought of it. They then forwarded to me what Claude had to say. One thing stuck out: Litigated language has known meaning; novel clearer language trades interpretive certainty for readability, … Read More
This week, The Volokh Conspiracy blog published my latest article, Comma Mischief from the Florida District Court of Appeal. The closing section explains that many judges are bad at textual interpretation. It ends with a rallying cry—the only fix would be to offer training to judges and their clerks, ideally from a center at a law school. The only way … Read More
In this blog post, I describe how Adams Contracts is in limbo. But some people are using Adams Contracts’ highly customizable templates! One of them is Katie Butler, managing attorney at Torch Law, a law firm based in Arkansas that offers “comprehensive legal support for data and technology” to clients in Arkansas and beyond. (That’s Katie in the accompanying photo.) … Read More
Where do things stand with my grand project to remake contract drafting? It’s in limbo. Thanks to A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting and the training I offer, there’s now a path to becoming an informed consumer of contract language. But that’s not enough: systemic dysfunction requires systemic change. Using highly customizable templates is the best option for systemic … Read More
