A few books on contract drafting have been published in the last couple of years: Butt, Peter & Castle, Richard, Modern Legal Drafting: A Guide to Using Clearer Language (2d ed. 2006). Darmstadter, Howard, Hereof, Thereof, and Everywhereof (2d ed. 2008). Haggard, Thomas R., and Kuney, George W., Legal Drafting in a Nutshell (3d ed. 2007). Kuney, George W., The … Read More
In case you’re interested, here’s the latest on MSCD2: I wasn’t satisfied with the design of MSCD, so I was ready for a fight over the design of MSCD2. But I’ve just seen some sample pages, and they look great. I’m already looking forward to seeing the finished product. I’m currently working on the last item that I have yet … Read More
The site was offline for most of yesterday due to high drama involving my server. Sorry about that; it shouldn’t happen again.
Here are the U.S. cities where I’ll be giving my “Contract Drafting—Language and Layout” seminar with West Legalworks in the second half of 2008: Seattle, Thursday, July 17 Washington, D.C., Wednesday, September 24 Minneapolis, Thursday, October 16 Boston, Wednesday, October 29 New York, Tuesday, November 18 San Francisco, Tuesday, December 9 Click here to go to the relevant page of … Read More
Here’s what The Chicago Manual of Style 8.55 has to say about use of initial capitals in references to political divisions: Words denoting political divisions—from empire, republic, and state down to ward and precinct—are capitalized when they follow a name and are used as an accepted part of the name. When preceding the name, such terms are usually capitalized in … Read More
In this November 2006 post I wrote about words that are fine in narrative writing but would be out of place in a contract. Well, I’ve thought of some more—therefore and related words such as thus, hence, and consequently. Here’s an example I just spotted: The term of this agreement will end three years following the date on which notice … Read More
Here’s a standard waiver provision: Waiver. No provision in this agreement may be waived, except by means of a writing signed by the party against whom the waiver is sought to be enforced. I find such provisions very odd. Let’s start by considering what a waiver is. There are two kinds of waiver: First, a contract might specify that Widgetco … Read More
I’m going over one of my contract redrafts. Here’s how I introduced a set of autonomous definitions: For purposes of this agreement, the following terms have the following meanings: You see this language, or some variation, in innumerable contracts. I’m not crazy about the way it groups the definitions, thereby leaving open the possibility that one defined term could have … Read More
In this May 2007 post I wrote about the signature-automation tool EchoSign. And my ACC Docket article with Brian Quinn mentions DocuSign. Well, there are other fish in that particular sea. I noticed that The Connected Lawyer—always a source of interesting information—recently posted about one of them, ConXPoint. Another is Sertifi. I’ve corresponded with John Stojka, a co-founder of Sertifi. … Read More
In this July 2006 post I said that although it’s standard to refer to “survival” of representations, it’s unhelpful to do so. I quoted language that I find much clearer. Well, it would seem that both the traditional language and my preferred language were found wanting in a 2007 case applying California law that I saw mentioned in the ABA … Read More
