I’m Featured in the September 2008 YourABA
The lead item in the September 2008 YourABA, the ABA’s e-newsletter for members, is a Q&A with yours truly. Click here to go to it. Regular readers of this blog will not be astonished at what I have to say.
“Consecutive Months”
[Updated October 1, 2008] Consider the following provision: During the term of this agreement and the following 24 consecutive months, the Consultant shall not … In this context, the word consecutive is redundant. The same applies to use of consecutive with other units of time. But consider this provision: The Employee shall spend two months every year in Acme’s Budapest … Read More
BaselineNDA—A Tool for Reviewing NDAs
I’ve kicked the tires of a good number of information-technology tools aimed at making the contract process more efficient, but I hadn’t encountered a product that aimed to simplify the task of reviewing a contract drafted by the other side in a transaction. That changed when I was contacted last week by Scott Soloway, founder and president of Baseline Solutions … Read More
The Numbering Assistant’s MSCD Schemes Revised; Also, New Templates Posted
MSCD 3.38 invites readers to request a free 30-day trial of the Numbering Assistant, the paragraph-numbering tool developed by Payne Consulting Group that allows you to quickly and simply apply one of the two flavors of the MSCD enumeration scheme to any contract in Word. Well, Payne Consulting Group is finally in a position to respond to any such requests, … Read More
“Dysfunctional Drafting”—My Opinion Piece in the National Law Journal
The September 8, 2008, issue of the National Law Journal contains my opinion piece “Dysfunctional Drafting.” Click here to go to the online version. By the way, check out the little illustration accompanying the piece.
LaserPro—A Document-Assembly Success Story
For most of us, using document-assembly to draft contracts remains an apparently distant prospect. But for some, it’s a fact of life. For example, I’ve previously mentioned the AIA’s Contract Documents system. Well, document assembly is sufficiently accepted in the construction industry that it now has a competitor, ConsensusDOCS. But a particularly interesting example of document assembly’s being used to … Read More
Dilbert on Contract Drafting
It’s uncanny how the following Dilbert cartoon strip captures perfectly my feelings regarding the language and process of mainstream contract drafting. Thanks to the (new) legal writer for spotting it.
Students Entitled to 40% Discount on MSCD
I just learned that students are entitled to a 40% discount on A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting if it’s assigned reading for a law-school class. If you’re a professor and would like to find out more (no students, please!), click here to send an email to Katrina Krause of the ABA.
“Provided That”
Comments to my recent post on granting language in a license alluded to the case of Jacobsen v. Katzer (Fed. Cir., Aug. 13, 2008). I’d like to pick up on something mentioned by commenter Chris—the court’s discussion of provided that. This case involved the language of an “open source” copyright license. The license granted users the right to use the … Read More
Granting Language in a Software License Agreement
Here’s a generic bit of granting language from a software license agreement: Acme hereby grants Widgetco a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid-up, worldwide license to the Software (that license, the “License“). I’m not a licensing guy, so it is with some trepidation that I ask the following question: Are such adjective-heavy formulations really the best alternative? As with any … Read More