Here’s something I tweeted today: Pop songs are nice, but if you want to enforce promises, put them in a contract! pic.twitter.com/7jW8SgoI8t — Ken Adams (@AdamsDrafting) October 29, 2017 And here’s the tweet that followed it: Some saying should be "or", but song DOESN'T USE A CONJUNCTION! Invitation to a fight! I should have used "do one or more of … Read More
Over the years I’ve attended an assortment of legal conferences that feature continuing-legal-education (CLE) panel discussions. I find that I share a sentiment I’ve seen and heard expressed often enough: that despite the best intentions of the organizers and panelists, panel sessions can be dreary and not particularly helpful. Recently I posted on LinkedIn this item containing some general observations on what … Read More
The website of the Society for Computers and Law—an English organization—has a review of the fourth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. It’s by Charles Drayson, an English IT lawyer with his own firm. Go here for the review.
Today I saw the following tweet: https://twitter.com/15lauren/status/921947032788414464 Here’s how I responded: You're doing it wrong :-) https://t.co/hKurJeRTmX — Ken Adams (@AdamsDrafting) October 22, 2017 The smiley in my tweet was to indicate that I was being facetious. Why was I being facetious? Because the process of drafting contracts, as it’s traditionally handled, would make anyone sad: You find, or are … Read More
In addition to the ACC annual meeting taking place in Washington, DC (I was on a panel), there’s the Legal Geek Conference happening in London. It came to my attention because of the following tweet: Yep…legal profession as the last vestige of the medieval guild system to survive. And #legaltech is here to change it #legalgeek pic.twitter.com/9NppMAzw6h — Joya (@joyavanhout) … Read More
Here are the dates for my 2018 public “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars in the US with Thomson Reuters (each day is a Thursday): 22 February, Dallas 22 March, New York 17 May, Chicago 14 June, Seattle 13 September, Boston 29 November, San Francisco And you can assume that in October I’ll do a seminar in Toronto with Osgoode Professional Development. … Read More
The English website The Lawyer has just published my new article Putting an End to Endeavours Nonsense. (Go here; free registration required.) I’d like this article to prompt some discussion, but the evidence I lay out is so clear-cut, I don’t think there’s any room for debate. Game over, case closed. The article mentions only briefly how to handle endeavours (or, … Read More
I’d heard from the ABA that copies of the fourth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting are now in inventory, but this tweet by @Bryan_Sims confirmed it: Just arrived. I can't wait to dive in. @KonciseD I love the new look. pic.twitter.com/sAfBvu0tGZ — Bryan_Sims (@Bryan_Sims) October 10, 2017 I don’t even have a copy yet, so I’m … Read More
Today Joe Kimble, doyen of the legal-writing community, sent me the following photo of a contract he had been asked to sign. The issue wasn’t the wall-to-wall legalese. Instead, in his email Joe said, “I signed this for a home tour yesterday. Why would visitors be asked to sign when the agreement is between the Lansing Historical Society and the … Read More
I noticed this post on ContractsProf Blog. It involves a fight over what “the fee” meant in a contract. Did it mean this fee or that fee? Ah, says I, that’s an instance of antecedent ambiguity. That’s where you allude to something mentioned elsewhere in a contract, but it’s arguably unclear what you’re actually referring to. See this post and … Read More
