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Rethinking Waiver Provisions

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

How to Introduce a Set of Autonomous Definitions

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

More Signature-Automation Solutions

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

Waiver of the Statute of Limitations in “Survival” Provisions

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

More on the Cerberus Litigation

In February, the New York Law Journal published my article about the litigation between Cerberus and United Rentals. If you’re hungry for more on the subject, check out this article in the American Lawyer. I make a brief guest-appearance.

Lexicon—A Tool for Organizing and Checking Defined Terms

One frustrating aspect of my self-appointed role as freewheeling contract-drafting guy is that I’m not involved, day in and day out, in drafting contracts. As a result, I don’t have occasion to gain hands-on experience with the nifty information-technology tools that are now available to help the drafter. I wrote about a bunch of them in my ACC Docket article … Read More

Attorneys Signing Contracts?

Victoria Pynchon—she of the Settle It Now Negotiation Blog—asked me the following question: While I was practicing, it was common for the opposition to put signature lines on settlement agreements for the attorneys’ signatures. I always refused to sign these, saying, “I’m not a party to this contract and I don’t think my signature adds anything to it.” Now, on … Read More

When an “Indemnified Party” Isn’t an Indemnified Party

It’s been a couple of months since I looked through recent opinions. It’s time for me to get back into the habit of doing so, because all sorts of interesting issues crop up. Consider Moore v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30480 (N.D. Miss. Mar. 31, 2008). It bears on how you create the defined term Indemnified Party. … Read More

“Change in Control” or “Change of Control”?

Here’s another issues that cropped up during my Geneva seminars: Which is preferable, change in control or change of control? My instinct was that both usages are equally acceptable, and that was borne out by five minutes of research. Contracts filed on the SEC’s EDGAR system don’t seem to display a marked preferance for one usage over the other. And … Read More

Schedules— “On” or “In”?

During one of my Geneva seminars this week, someone asked me whether it’s better to say listed/described/stated in schedule X or on schedule X. I’d been asked this question a couple of times previously, and I’d responded that I wasn’t sure that I cared. But on being asked a third time, it dawned on me that no question of usage … Read More