Month: December 2010

“Indefinitely”

In contracts, the word indefinitely is used to convey two different meanings. I’m not keen on that, seeing as the Prime Directive of contract drafting is not to use one word or phrase to convey two or more meanings and not to use two or more different words or phrases to convey a single meaning. One meaning conveyed by indefinitely … Read More

“Personal Delivery”?

Periodically I inflict on you my musings regarding notices-provisions terminology. (See this August 2009 AdamsDrafting blog post on why I’ve opted for “national transportation company,” and see this March 2009 AdamsDrafting blog post on why I refer to “fax.”) Well, it’s now time for me to address another such cataclysmic issue. I’ve never been crazy about the phrase “personal delivery.” … Read More

Drudgery and the Corporatisation of Law

In this post at Adam Smith, Esq., Bruce MacEwen—I assume it’s Bruce—riffs on a couple of articles in the U.K. periodical Law Week, this one asking “Does the global law model help or hinder the top-level adviser?” and this one asking “Do big personalities exist at law firms?” These articles, and Bruce’s piece, consider the notion that law firms are limiting their recruitment … Read More

2011 Dates for U.S. “Drafting Clearer Contracts” Seminars

West and I have set the 2011 dates for my “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars: March 10: Philadephia, PA April 6: Tampa, FL (new location) May 4: Chicago, IL June 9: Morristown, NJ (new location) September 15: Boston, MA October 12: Minneapolis, MN October 25: Washington, D.C. November 2: New York, NY December [6, 7, or 8: TBD]: Santa Clara, CA … Read More

New 2011 Canada Dates for “Drafting Clearer Contracts” Seminars

I’ll be doing my “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminar for Osgoode Professional Development in Ottawa on Monday, March 7, 2011 and in Toronto on Wednesday, May 11, 2011. Go here for more information. This will be my second time in Ottawa. As for Toronto, for a while now I’ve been doing two sold-out seminars a year, with around eighty people in … Read More

When Does Information Become Public?

A standard element of confidentiality agreements is exclusions from the definition of “Confidential Information.” They’re sufficiently inevitable that longtime reader Michael Fleming refers to them as “The Four Romanettes®.” I’ve been mulling over one of them, the exclusion for information that becomes public. Actually, that’s just one way of phrasing it. Here’s a range of alternatives: information that is or becomes … Read More

Shameless Self-Promotion? Moi?

In an evaluation submitted after one of my recent speaking engagements, someone complained about how I “shamelessly” plugged my book. And in an evaluation submitted after a recent seminar, someone said, with respect to my one-minute explanation of Koncision, “Could do without the sales pitch for his company!” Given that those probably won’t be the last complaints I hear about … Read More

Revisiting RPost

This April 2009 AdamsDrafting blog post is about giving notice by email. From comments to that post I learned about RPost’s Registered Email service, and I quickly added to that post an update about RPost. I’ve decided that RPost’s service adds sufficient value that I want to include it as an option in Koncision products. More specifically, when Koncision customers … Read More

Conventions Regarding the Order of Parties in the Introductory Clause

I’ve noticed that in most one-way confidentiality agreements, the disclosing party is listed first in the introductory clause. That prompted me to speculate whether in other kinds of contracts there’s a generally accepted order in which the parties are listed in the introductory clause. On the other hand, there’s the urge to put your client, or your company, first. That … Read More