Gee, did I miss the announcement that it was “Free Contracts Week” on the blawgosphere? First there was this article on Tech Crunch by @ddoktori. That spawned this post by @carolynelefant on myShingle, this post on Above the Law by @josephpatrice, and this post on Forbes by @basharubin. I’ll add my six cents’ worth about making form contracts or, even better, … Read More
Recently I read a contract that contained scattered search-and-replace glitches. In attempting to remove identifying information, someone had searched for one of the party-name defined terms and replaced it with something generic, with unintended consequences. I can’t tell you the exact change they made, but it’s as if they had replaced Signa with Vendor and had created as a byproduct scattered … Read More
A little birdie told me about the opinion of the Quebec Superior Court in Cemar Electro Inc. v. Grob Textile, A.G., 2014 QCCS 5814. (Go here for a copy.) In a contract with plaintiff Cemar, defendant Grob promised to “use its best efforts to advertise and promote the sale of the Products in the Territory and to make regular and sufficient contact … Read More
Each of the following extracts from EDGAR exhibits the same problem: For purposes of this Agreement, “Eligible Plan Assets” mean total Plan Assets (including assets invested in American Funds and other mutual funds or investment options approved for use in PlanPremier), excluding … “Moral Rights” mean any rights to claim authorship of or credit on an Assigned Inventions … For purpose of … Read More
Behold the following: Nothing in this agreement gives either party a license or other right to use the trademarks … If the idea is that neither party is allowed to use the trademarks in the specified manner, say so: Each party shall not use the trademarks … For one, it’s shorter. And second, if you say “Nothing in this agreement gives” … Read More
A lot of discussion about how smaller law firms can use document assembly—see for example this article—isn’t particularly exciting. You might be left with the impression that it’s nothing more than mail merge on steroids. I’ll now try to explain why that’s not the case. Above is part of a post on Contract-Automation Clearinghouse. To see the rest, go here. Contract-Automation Clearinghouse is where I … Read More
My December 11, 2014, San Francisco “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminar was cancelled because of a power outage caused by the epic storm that swept through the city that morning. It has now been rescheduled for February 20, 2015; go here for more information. The rescheduled seminar isn’t open only to those who registered for the December 11 seminar—newcomers are welcome too! … Read More
Years ago a wrote briefly about contract-lifecycle-management (CLM) software, which is software that allows an organization to keep track of its contracts and key contract information, such as deadlines. See for example this 2007 post. Apttus and Emptoris are just two examples of CLM software. But I’ve never had any direct experience with CLM software, and I’ve had only brief conversations … Read More
In this post on his LawSites blog, Bob Ambrogi (@bobambrogi) lists what he considers the ten most important legal technology developments of 2014. It makes for interesting reading, but of course the first thing I looked for was any mention of contract automation. As I would have expected, there was none. Above is part of a post on Contract-Automation Clearinghouse. To see the … Read More
I’m sorry that I’ve been slow to post this, but I won’t be doing seminars in Australia in 2015, even though the author note in my 2014 article for the ACLA Journal (here) said that I would be. It’s not for lack of demand. Instead, Melbourne University has been going through serious budget woes, so my partner Melbourne Law School simply … Read More
