Blog

If “Indemnify, Defend, and Hold Harmless” Isn’t Enough

Yesterday I received from longtime reader Chris Lemens an email complaining about someone opting for indemnify, hold harmless, and exonerate. It’s bad enough to have hold harmless, not to mention defend—why add exonerate! I looked into indemnify plus exonerate, and yes, it’s a thing: But inspired by Chris, I looked for other gratuitous additions to indemnify, and I found protect: … Read More

You Can’t Count on Prompting Your Way Out of AI Dysfunction

[Revised on 11 September 2025 to change the title and the text. The original title was If AI Gets One Thing Wrong, It Might Get Other Stuff Wrong.] Recently I saw on LinkedIn, in this post by Kara Dowdall, the following assessment of a contract: This assessment was generated by artificial intelligence. Or more specifically, by Claude, from Anthropic. I … Read More

Lawyers Pay Attention to Caselaw, Unless They Don’t: A Thought Prompted by Glenn West’s Response to Chowdhury, Chudkowski & Gulati

In a previous blog post (here), I offer thoughts on a law review article, Tara Chowdhury, Faith Chudkowski & Mitu Gulati, The Form Knows Best, 79 U. of Miami L. Rev. 607 (2025). The same issue of that law review contains Glenn West’s response to that article—The Form Doesn’t Know Anything: A Response to Chowdhury, Chudkowski & Gulati, 79 U. … Read More

For Readers in Asia: For Contract Drafting, AI Is No Substitute for Knowledge (Plus News of Presentations in Asia)

One of my corporate partners, Thomson Reuters Asia, is contemplating something old-fashioned—having me do Drafting Clearer Contracts presentations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, Manila, and Mumbai (details below). Yes—really. I offer Drafting Clearer Contracts training online, but in-person presentations can be more fun. But my contact at TR tells me that some potential participants have suggested there’s no point. … Read More

It’s Never Good to Use “Shall Be” in an Autonomous Definition

In a LinkedIn post, I challenged readers to find for me a contract that used shall be or will be in creating an autonomous definition. I wasn’t surprised that I was the only entrant in that thrilling competition. I submitted the following example: Using shall be in this context is as unhelpful as using is. That’s something I discuss in … Read More

The Legalistic Mind Can Rationalize Anything

If a contract usage has been around long enough and appears in enough contracts, you’ll find people to defend it, no matter how archaic or otherwise nonsensical it is. A case in point: yesterday Ryan McCarl did this LinkedIn post about the word witnesseth, calling it a “meaningless incantation.” That prompted one reader to say this (in two comments I’ve … Read More

“Gym Bag”: An Instance of Not Being Sufficiently Specific

When I try to make sense of a big new topic, usually I ask myself, What’s the taxonomy? What’s a sensible way to divide the pie? That’s what I did with the sources of uncertain meaning in contract language. A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting contains my most up-to-date take on that taxonomy, but this 2016 article covers the … Read More

Notes from the Road: Helsinki, Again

On the Road Again Last week I traveled to Helsinki to do a Drafting Clearer Contracts presentation for a Finnish company. This was my first in-person presentation outside the United States since late 2019, when I did a memorable presentation in Seoul that I describe in this blog post. That was the culmination of several years of traveling the world … Read More

Throat-Clearing: It’s More than Verbs

Gaining control over your contract verb structures requires that you be familiar with “throat-clearing.” What’s throat-clearing? It’s when a drafter sticks a redundant verb structure at the beginning of a sentence. As my gift to you, here’s part of the MSCD section on throat-clearing. The reason for this post is that recently I realized you can have throat-clearing that uses … Read More