I’m in the process of revisiting the concept of “misapplied” terms of art, which I discuss in MSCD chapter 1. The idea is that it doesn’t make sense to use doctrinal terms of art in contracts if simpler terminology is available. Today’s candidate for a misapplied term of art is the noun subrogation (and the verb subrogate). Here’s the Black’s Law … Read More
Indian law schools are partial to contract-drafting competitions. As I noted in this 2011 post, I think such competitions are a good idea. Recently someone from the boutique Indian law firm TRA told me about the competition his firm was helping to run with the National Law School of India University. He asked me whether I could think of any … Read More
I had a brief exchange on Twitter that ended as follows: @ronfriedmann I was just curious if you had data to back up the claim that it doesn't work. It seems the answer is no. NBD — Rᴏʙᴇʀᴛ Aɴᴅᴇʀsᴏɴ (@ProfRobAnderson) February 19, 2017 I like to think I’m not that guy who always has to have the last word on … Read More
Go here for my updated list of 2017 “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars in the United States. What’s changed is that the Houston and St. Louis seminars have been moved back, to 25 May and 1 June respectively. No surprise there: the original information was posted late in 2016, leaving little time for marketing the earliest dates. I hope to see … Read More
I learned a couple of days ago that I’ll be speaking at the 2017 ACC annual meeting, in Washington, DC. In case you didn’t know, ACC is the Association of Corporate Counsel. I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent with ACC people. In fact, I’ve scored something of an exacta, as I’ll also be speaking at the 2017 ACC Europe annual … Read More
This post is my response to @ronfriedmann‘s tweet below. .@KonciseD Fair . But how do we scale to ensure widespread, properly drafted agreements? And how do we persuade lawyers of necessity? — ronfriedmann (@ronfriedmann) February 16, 2017 If you want clearer, more effective contracts, you need two things: supply and demand. Supply By “supply,” I mean that you have to provide … Read More
Today I revisited my 2016 post on reasonable and hypallage (here). In trying to make sense of that post, I revisited hypallage generally. Be warned: that’s what this post is about. In the Ben Zimmer item (here) I link to in the previous post, here’s how Ben describes hypallage: Hypallage (pronounced hy-PAL-uh-jee, rhyming with analogy) is a literary device that … Read More
[Updated 18 August 2021: I belatedly remembered that I refer to this page at the end of the introduction to the fourth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. It might have been relevant then, but now it is irrelevant. For one thing, I no longer do consulting. My automated NDA is now, once more, in the garage, … Read More
You’ve heard of “punctuated equilibrium,” right? That’s the notion that the evolution of species consists of relative stability for long periods interspersed with much shorter periods during which many species become extinct and new species emerge. (Go to Wikipedia for more.) Well, bear with me. I first paid attention to severability language in this 2011 post. I revisited the subject … Read More
[Updated 3 February 2017] On 30 January I rolled out in this post a new version of the introductory part of my severability language. That prompted me to look at the rest of it, and I realized that it didn’t work. For example, “then that provision will be modified”? Passive voice? Who’s the actor? And what category of contract language … Read More
