Via Mark Anderson, I learned of the opinion of the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, in Sycamore Bidco Ltd v. Breslin. I paid it just enough attention to see that it exemplifies an unhealthy English approach to contract drafting and contract interpretation. The contract at issue contained the following language: 5. Seller Warranties 5.1 The Sellers severally warrant to the Buyer … Read More
On Thursday, January 17, at 11:00 a.m. EST, I’ll be doing an “Ask the Expert” call on “Trends in Contract Drafting” with the International Association for Contract & Commercial Management, know to its friends as IACCM. Go here for additional information and to register. The call is free. You have to be a member to participate, but you can sign … Read More
While I was scanning this post by @theContractsGuy on “How to Sign a Contract,” an unfamiliar thought passed through my mind: “I wish I had written that!” Check it out.
It’s all Eric Goldman‘s fault. In this comment to a 2010 post in which I lamented the demise of traditional reviews of law books, Eric suggested that if I want to see reviews of books on contract drafting, I have to be willing to do some reviewing myself. That was the thin end of the wedge. Now, I’m sometimes too … Read More
For purposes of law books, the traditional book review is pretty much dead, as I suggested in this 2010 post. But some books manage to generate discussion online. To encourage that sort of discussion, in early February the ABA will be distributing a limited number of review copies of the third edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. … Read More
Finally, the third edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting is at the printer. It took long enough: Four years of preparing blog posts that were first-draft versions of much that’s new in the book. Two months solid of writing and collating. Three months of tweaking the manuscript and addressing an array of all sorts of comments from … Read More
[Revised January 9, 2013, to make my point a little clearer and to trim away some invective.] Thomson Reuters has announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Practical Law Company, “the London-based provider of practical legal know-how and workflow tools to law firms and corporate law departments.” Go here for the announcement. Apparently, PLC has locked up the … Read More
In recent weeks I haven’t posted much, if anything, on specific issues of contract language, and I won’t be doing so for a while. Here’s why: The third edition of MSCD will be coming out in February. The last thing I feel like doing right now is any research that might suggest last-minute changes. Once the third edition has come out, … Read More
I’m delighted to announce that hot on the heels of my seminars in Geneva and Hamburg, I’ll be giving a day-long “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminar in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Thursday, 18 April 2013. My host for this seminar is Maersk Line, the global container shipping company. I’m very pleased to have their support. Go here [link no longer available] for complete details … Read More
[Revised 9:00 p.m. EST, December 20, 2013, to make it less dismissive. Sorry about that.] Once again I was drawn to Bob Ambrogi’s LawSites, this time for this post about wireLawyer. Here are the first two paragraphs of Bob’s post: Back in October, I reported the beta launch of wireLawyer.com, which described itself as “the first dedicated digital network created by lawyers for … Read More
