You’re familiar with “the tragedy of the commons,” right? Individual users have open access to a resource. In using that resource, they’re unconstrained by formal rules or shared social structures, so each user acts independently according to their own self-interest. But that’s inconsistent with the common good, because through their uncoordinated action, users deplete that resource. Hence the tragedy. The … Read More
A casualty of the fourth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting was what had been chapter 20 of the third edition, entitled “Drafting Corporate Resolutions.” I figured that the book had gotten big enough that that chapter, which doesn’t have anything to do with contracts, would be clutter. But that chapter is a good example of what … Read More
Selling services is very different from selling stuff, so contracts for one are different from contracts for the other. Yet drafters are prone to deploying in contacts for the sale of services concepts that make sense only for selling goods. One example of that is saying that services are being sold “as-is.” When you sell a car “as-is,” that means … Read More
As a companion piece to this blog post from last week about putting the date of the contract in the introductory clause, in this post I’ll explain why it’s not a good idea to use as the date of a contract a date that reflects timing of performance. To capture past performance, drafters sometimes use in the introductory clause a … Read More
Generally, action is better than gestures. But gestures can lead to action, so I’m amenable to gestures. For example, perhaps ten years ago I was surprised to have a training participant suggest that I not use guys when addressing the men and women in the group. At first I wasn’t convinced, but now, no guys. Similarly, in the past few … Read More
Last week an exchange of emails with Alex Hamilton prompted me to rethink an aspect of the date you put in the introductory clause of a contract. That led to my doing this blog post over the weekend, which in turn led to this comment on LinkedIn that caused me to do further rethinking, which led to my badgering @writeclimbrun. … Read More
A couple of months ago I did this blog post about the redundant reference-point exception in the bringdown condition. Today we revisit the bringdown condition to consider an issue involving how the bringdown condition is modified by materiality. The bringdown condition allows one side to use inaccuracy in the other side’s statements of fact (traditionally referred to as representations and … Read More
The only way to escape contract dysfunction is to provide those who work with contracts an alternative to the copy-and-paste machine. The simplest and most effective alternative would be a subscription-based service offering automated contract templates. For as long as I’ve been researching contract language, I’ve wanted to create such a service. That’s no accident: I’ve always had in mind … Read More
Check out the screenshot above. By saying what time zone doesn’t apply for determining the date of the contract (New York time), it in effect says that Macau time (I assume) applies. It would have been clearer to say “(Macau time)” after the date of the contract, but that’s a quibble. So, is it a good idea to say which … Read More
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