Odds and Ends

How Many Years of Education Does It Take to Understand the Average Business Contract? (Trick Question!)

I noticed that WorldCC and Deloitte Legal have produced a report entitled The ROI of Contracting Excellence 2023. (Go here to ask for a copy.) It’s mostly unrelated to what I do, but I noticed this passage on page 11 of the report: In consumer markets, many organizations (and regulators) have grasped the importance of greater balance and of simplifying … Read More

Tiptoeing Around “Nonlawyer”

I’ve previously written about the word nonlawyer, in this 2020 blog post. Prompted by something I posted on LinkedIn yesterday (here), I thought I’d try again, to reflect a further thought. So this post is my definitive take, until my next nonlawyer post! I think what Julie Savarino says in this LinkedIn post (see also Julie’s follow-up post here) captures … Read More

I Was Interviewed by Brian L. Frye for His Ipse Dixit Podcast

If you would like to spend 42 minutes listening to me discuss what I do in response to questions from an experienced interviewer, go here. The interviewer is law professor Brian L. Frye and the forum is his long-running Ipse Dixit podcast. (I’m interviewee 780!) Why listen to this kind of interview? Perhaps to get a conversational summary of a … Read More

The Word “Content” and Commoditizing Insight

Consider the noun talent. It can be used to refer collectively to musicians or actors, especially star performers. In that context, I’m used to it coming out of the mouths of managers, record-company executives, and others looking to make money off of artists. It gives off a whiff of condescension, even denigration. That brings us to the noun content. In … Read More

A New Contracts Blog? Somebody Pinch Me!

This week I noticed a new blog, Improving Contracts. It’s by Chris Simkins, a commercial lawyer based in the UK; he’s Head of Contract Optimisation at Simmons & Simmons, the global law firm. (Nice title!) The blog has the tagline “A blog about creating better contracts,” but I asked Chris for a bit more detail, and here’s what he said: I’ve … Read More

The Blue-Sky Bolt and the Role of Insight in the Legal Realm

Recently someone pointed out a typo in the fifth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. (More about that thrilling topic soon!) In an email to them, I joked about awarding them the “Crimson Lightning Bolt for Glitch-Finding Valor.” That got me wondering what such a medal might look like. Because I now have in my corner Moh … Read More

Meet the Designer of My Monkey Illustration

In this post I discuss the illustration above. It graces one of the T-shirts and one of the mugs on offer in my new A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting merchandise store (here). I set up my store as a light-hearted way to allow those who value MSCD to express that. But if anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing … Read More

Do Law Professors Disdain the Practical?

In this 2020 blog post, entitled somewhat gradiosely The Deafening Silence: Why People Generally Don’t Take Me On in the Marketplace of Ideas, I explain why, well, people generally don’t take me on in the marketplace of ideas. But this article by Katy Barnett of Melbourne Law School got me to thinking further about the role that academics play, or … Read More

Grinding Out the Expertise

This week, I received an email with this opening line: “Researching the topic of contract drafting, I seem to keep stumbling across your content as the subject matter expert.” And yesterday I noticed that the ACC Docket has designated my article with Michael Fleming on reviewing contracts (here) as one of 2022’s Most Read Docket Articles. This sort of recognition … Read More