A little over a year ago I launched my Adams Contracts Consulting business. As I expected, I now spend an increasing amount of time on my consulting work. I need someone who can help me with it. The work will involve preparing contract templates for clients and, in due course, helping to build automated templates using Contract Express. It will begin slowly, on a … Read More
In everyday English, the phrase so long as means if. As in, You may go to the movies, so long as Juanita goes too. It’s used to convey that meaning in contracts too. I’m here to tell you that you should use if instead, as in the following examples that I caught in an EDGAR glue trap: During the Restricted … Read More
Consider the following: … that the Employee conceived, developed, or made, either solely or jointly with others, (1) within the scope of the Employee’s duties … See the problem? It’s not clear whether either solely or jointly with others modifies just made or instead modifies conceived, developed, or made. In other words, this extract exhibits syntactic ambiguity. I’d rather not be … Read More
I’m pleased to be returning to Australia, to give “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars under the auspices of Melbourne Law School. I’ll be in Sydney on 11 October and in Melbourne on 13 October. The host for both seminars is the international law firm Allens. For more information and to register, go here. As usual, my seminars in Australia will be something … Read More
You can turn any standard contract into a letter agreement by adjusting the opening and closing. (MSCD contains a chapter on letter agreements.) In what contexts might that make sense? In particular, recently I’ve had occasion to read “offer letters” between a company and an employee. They’re letter agreements. More often than not, they use you and your for the employee. … Read More
