In this post last month, I responded to this blog post by Kingsley Martin by considering the extent to which artificial-intelligence analysis of a set of precedent contracts can, by itself, allow you to create optimal contract language. I concluded that it cannot. I’m now going to continue gnawing on that bone; if you found my previous post a drag, … Read More
Greetings from Geneva! I’m here giving a series of seminars, but I received word that in his recent opinion in GRT, Inc. v. Marathon GTF Technology, Ltd., 2011 WL 2682898 (Del. Ch. July 11, 2011) (go here for a PDF copy), Chancellor Strine of the Delaware Court of Chancery discusses at modest length, in footnote 79, what A Manual of Style … Read More
In the court order I mentioned in the immediately preceding post, the following sentence caught my eye: “At the bottom of each page of the [product purchase agreement], there is a copyright notice that reserves all rights in the document to Nokia, indicating that Nokia was likely the drafter of the contract.” It’s rare that I encounter any mention of … Read More
Steven Sholk told me about a recent court order of the District Court for the Northern District of California in the litigation known as In re TFT-LCD (Flat Panel) Antitrust Litigation. (Go here for a PDF copy of the court order.) In this litigation, Nokia filed suit against numerous U.S. and other defendants for violations of state and federal antitrust … Read More
A reader alerted me to the First Circuit Court of Appeal’s recent opinion in In re Bank of New England Corporation. (Go here for a PDF copy.) At issue was whether the junior debt was subordinate to post-petition interest accrued on the senior debt. The answer to that question hinged on a reference to “interest due or to be come due” in … Read More
A law firm’s or law department’s template initiative might fail for any number of reasons: It doesn’t reflect state-of-the-art substance. It uses the dysfunctional language of mainstream contract drafting. It uses Word rather than document-assembly technology. The incentives are sufficiently skewed that no one wants to work on it. Not enough people want to use it. And so on. But … Read More
[Updated 7:30 a.m. EDT, July 6, 2011: I added the proposed contract language at the end.] I’ve come to value Venkat Balasubramani’s posts on Eric Goldman’s Technology & Marketing Law Blog. They’re a useful source of leads regarding novel contract-drafting issues. A case in point: this post by Venkat regarding the recent opinion of the Indiana Court of Appeals in Enhanced … Read More
Today it was announced that Thomson Reuters has acquired the Australian online document company Cleardocs. (Go here for the ABA Journal’s brief article about the deal.) Using some form of document assembly, Cleardocs allows users to create, among other things, company documents, employment agreements, and trust documents. After noting that there should be a moratorium on document companies with “docs” … Read More
The current issue of the ABA Journal contains this article on practice support lawyers. It cites my views on PSLs and quotes this blog post. If you’ve read my blog post and the blog post by Ian Nelson that it refers to, this article won’t tell you anything particularly new, but I thought it worth noting.
