Andrew Stokes is CEO of The Law Machine, “a contracting platform that makes contract content modular so lawyers can automate contracts visually through a drag and drop UI.” I enjoy Andrew’s posts. I noticed his two most recent posts. In this one, he gripes about the notion of “market” contract terms: If ever again a $1000/hour lawyer dares tell me … Read More
The ABA Journal has published my essay entitled What Should We Do with “Nonlawyer”? Go here. I wrote it because I thought polemic on the subject (including a couple of contributions by me) doesn’t tell the whole story. In my essay, I suggest that for two reasons, we can ease up on the indignation over nonlawyer. First, this use of … Read More
A client of the law firm Proskauer Rose has sued the firm for malpractice, seeking $636 million in damages. Robert Adelman alleges that because of a provision mistakenly included in a contract relating to control of a hedge fund, the hedge fund’s manager was able to seize Adelman’s stake in the fund. Adelman’s lawyers allege that Proskauer negligently copy-and-pasted the … Read More
Go here for episode 16 of Gatekeeper’s “Procurement Reimagined,” with host Daniel Barnes. The title is Moving Beyond Cut and Paste: The Criticality of Contract Language with Ken Adams, Chief Content Officer at LegalSifter. Yes, it consists of a chat with yours truly. My thanks to Daniel for keeping the conversation moving!
I noticed the most recent post by Chris Simkins on his Improving Contracts blog. Entitled L2L Contracts: Thinking beyond B2C and B2B, it explores the implications of, well, L2L contracts. What are L2L contracts, you ask? Here’s what Chris says: When I use L2L, I don’t mean a contract between two lawyers, or two law firms. I’m using it to … Read More
For the sheer heck of it, I’ve added another T-shirt to my collection of snarky contract-drafting gear. It uses a design by Russell Christian that I commissioned years ago. I used to call it “The Scrivener”, but now I’m calling it “The Traditionalist”. On the back is the Adams on Contract Drafting logo. The T-shirt is available here. As always, … Read More
In addition to public series of my online course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass (information here), I also do private series for organizations. The dynamic is different when the only participants are people from your organization. And I customize my PowerPoint presentations with examples drawn from your templates. I’m a little lax about harvesting testimonials, mostly because I don’t want to … Read More
As I wait for various shoes to drop, I’m currently devoting much of my attention to the training I offer. Part of the process involves promoting what I do. I’d rather be understated about that, but I assume that understated doesn’t always get you far enough these days. In that spirit, here’s some feedback I received this week: But I’m … Read More
Today I received a tip from reader Brad Axelrod. He told me about the recent opinion of the Delaware Court of Chancery in Intrepid Investments (here). This case involves a fight over interpretation of a provision in which the parties agreed to exclusive jurisdiction of Delaware courts “[a]s to any dispute, claim, or litigation arising out of or relating in … Read More
This morning, while I was banging out an email, Grammarly saw fit to offer the following suggestion: Hmm. Interesting. Should we say data-sharing agreement, not data sharing agreement? Some background is in order. This is from Garner’s Modern English Usage 827 (5th ed.): When a phrase functions as an adjective preceding the noun it modifies … the phrase should ordinarily … Read More
