A couple of readers sent me links to articles relating to Steven Pinker and his new book, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. For those who are unfamiliar with him, Steven Pinker is, I suppose, about as close as we get to a public intellectual these days. His mane of grey curls probably helps! I’m … Read More
This week I had the pleasure of giving two in-house “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars in Doha, Qatar. As often happens, I came away with with a new issue to explore. In particular, one of the participants asked me what I thought of use in contracts of the adverb continuously. He didn’t think much of it. And now I can say that … Read More
Consider the following, the first expressed positively, the second expressed negatively: We’ll let you into the party only if you’re wearing a red carnation and a top hat. We won’t let you into the party unless you’re wearing a red carnation and a top hat. But it’s unlikely that you’d be admitted to the party if you were wearing only … Read More
Last month I considered in this post the relative merits of shall not … unless and may … only if, the former negative, the latter positive. I ended up opting for the former, at least provisionally. Now consider the following: An amendment to this agreement will be effective only if it is in writing and signed by both parties. An amendment to … Read More
Go here for my interview on Scholastica Blog about my recent course at Notre Dame Law School.
The current issue of The Australian Corporate Lawyer—the journal of the Australian Corporate Lawyers Association—contains my article Banishing Shall from Business Contracts: Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater (PDF copy here). What it has to say won’t come as a surprise to regular readers of this blog, but I expect that it will come as a surprise to plenty of … Read More
In this post I mentioned that I had asked my students at Notre Dame Law School to analyze the verb structures in the “SOW terms & conditions agreement” (available here) that goes with Cisco’s advanced-services statement of work. Well, I decided that some of you might find of interest my comments on how categories of contract language are handled in the first three … Read More
In November, I head to Asia—I’m giving seminars in Seoul, Tokyo, and Singapore. I’m particularly looking forward to my seminar in Tokyo. It will be my first trip to Japan in 25 years, and my first seminar in Japan. (For more information, go here.) I haven’t had much occasion to engage with Japanese contracts professionals. I expect that the seminar … Read More
Yesterday I saw an English template contract that had in the signature blocks three brackets (or rather, closing parentheses) one on top of the other. I recall Mark Anderson (aka @IPDraughts) have mentioned that practice at some point, so I asked him about it again. Here’s what he said: You are supposed to sign in the space to the right … Read More
In addition to bringing in outside lawyers to take part in my “intensive” Contract Drafting course at Notre Dame Law School (as described in this post), I wrapped up the course with a drafting project for an outside organization. More specifically, we prepared our version of a new template contract for Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA). … Read More
