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In this 2018 blog post, I made available what I called the “quick reference” chart outlining my “categories of contract language” framework. Yesterday someone asked me whether that was still the most current version available for download, so I thought it appropriate to make available the version from the fifth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. So … Read More

I’ve previously mentioned, in this blog post and in this LinkedIn post, my “blue-sky bolt”—a design that has morphed into an enamel pin. Well, soon I’ll start sending enamel pins as a thank-you gesture to those who do something to further the cause or help me out in some manner. For that, I’ll need a card, so here it is … Read More

Occasionally I see someone invoke Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style in connection with drafting contracts. Two things come to mind, one specific, the other general. First, Strunk & White doesn’t have an unblemished reputation. Linguist Geoff Pullum did a number on it in this article, in which he says this: I believe the success of Elements to be … Read More

In this blog post I reminded myself and you all that A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting has a life independent from me: just as you don’t need me to read MSCD, you also don’t need me to teach MSCD. In that spirit, would you be interested in presenting my course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass to a group from … Read More

It’s high time that I shift gears, in two respects. Positive Over Negative I’ve spent much of the past 20 years on the offense. I decided early on that if I wanted to make headway against entrenched notions of what clear contract language looks like, and if I wanted to keep myself and my readers interested, I shouldn’t pull my … Read More

Although it’s early in the game, I’m willing to believe that generative artificial intelligence, by whatever name (“large language models”, GPT-4, and so on), will have a significant effect on the world of work. But it’s not relevant to what I do, because for now, contracts are largely immune to a generative-AI takeover. For one thing, mainstream contract drafting is … Read More

[Updated 2:30 p.m. ET to incorporate Vance’s version (see his comment).] Below are five versions of a sentence, with the only difference being the order in which the components are arranged. I listed the first four in the order in which I preferred them at the time of posting, from most preferred to least. The fifth is the version proposed … Read More

Betteridge’s law of headlines says that “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.” Well, Betteridge’s law applies to this post. Raiford Palmer drew my attention to this tweet, which says as follows: Defined terms (“Definitions”) should be 1 word. 2 words MAX, in rare cases. If you’re out here dropping 3+ word … Read More