Month: January 2014

The President of Alabama State University Signs an Awkwardly Worded Contract

Via @BrianStewartOH I learned of this article in the Washington Post about a contract between Alabama State University and its new president. The contract contains the following provision: For so long as Dr. Boyd is President and a single person, she shall not be allowed to cohabitate in the President’s residence with any person with whom she has a romantic relation. … Read More

“The Date Notified”

Here’s an odd little usage: the date notified. I first saw it in section 1.1.3.2 of the FIDIC contract I discussed in this post (emphasis added): “Commencement Date” means the date notified under Sub-Clause 8.1. Here are some other examples from that den of iniquity, the SEC’s EDGAR system: Each Lender shall make available to the applicable Issuing Bank an … Read More

Upcoming Seminars: Montreal, Australia

The holidays are over, and I’ll soon be heading out on the road. Here are the public “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars scheduled for the next few weeks: January 17, Montreal, QC February 17, Melbourne, Australia February 18, Canberra, Australia February 21, Sydney, Australia I’ll be in Kuala Lumpur on February 24–25 for a two-day seminar, and on March 27 I’ll be … Read More

Don’t Be Unduly Deferential to Contract Language

Cousin Joshua Stein pointed out to me this post on Above the Law. It’s by Keith Lee, who has his own site, Associate’s Mind. Keith’s post is about the perils of hasty change: Put simply, don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up. Policies and procedures that are in place are likely … Read More

The First Circuit on “Including”

On Tweetdeck, I have a column for tweets that contain the words “contract” and “drafting.” From the tweets that show up there, every so often I learn about stuff that I might otherwise have missed. For example, today I saw the following: New Alert: First Circuit's lesson on necessity of precision in loan contract drafting http://t.co/OGhw94XOPB — Tim Durken (@TDurken) … Read More

A Post Acknowledging Judge Richard Kopf: Would It Be Inappropriate for Judges to Endorse Contract-Language Guidelines?

This week Richard Kopf, a senior U.S. district-court judge, announced in this post on his blog, Hercules and the Umpire, that he wouldn’t be writing anything further for the blog, which he began in February 2013. For more about Judge Kopf and his blogging, see this WSJ article and this ABA Journal article. In a comment to his farewell post I said, perhaps rather … Read More

What Does “Contract Design” Mean?

The notion of “design” is all the rage. For example, this article about Stanford’s D.school appeared in the New York Times earlier this week. As regards the legal profession, there’s this ABA Journal article by Paul Lippe on the role of design in legal services. Then there are all the references to “contract design” in academic stuff I’ve been reading. So far, … Read More