A couple of readers sent me links to articles relating to Steven Pinker and his new book, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. For those who are unfamiliar with him, Steven Pinker is, I suppose, about as close as we get to a public intellectual these days. His mane of grey curls probably helps! I’m … Read More
In this post I mentioned that I had asked my students at Notre Dame Law School to analyze the verb structures in the “SOW terms & conditions agreement” (available here) that goes with Cisco’s advanced-services statement of work. Well, I decided that some of you might find of interest my comments on how categories of contract language are handled in the first three … Read More
Although the way I’ve chosen to earn my living has its challenges (like any other), there’s one aspect of law-firm life that I don’t miss: the sense of panic that would come over me on realizing that I might have left something out of a draft contract or made some other drafting mistake. It could strike at any time, and … Read More
I was vaguely aware of news accounts of the contract travails of Jimmy Graham, a player for the American football team the New Orleans Saints. But it was only after reading this post by Megan E. Boyd (aka @LadyLegalWriter) on her blog Lady (Legal) Writer (after being told about it by Steven Sholk) did I realize that it fell within … Read More
To entertain myself during my recent travels, I retrieved from the SEC’s EDGAR system a Google services agreement and proceeded to annotate it to show its contract-usage shortcomings. (As is usual with such reviews, I didn’t analyze the deal points.) Why Google? Because I’d heard on occasion that Google’s contracts are OK. On finishing my review, I thought that if … Read More
If there’s anything worse than drafting confusing contract language, it’s making a mistake that results in a provision conveying a meaning that puts your client in a deep, expensive hole. That came to mind last week, while I was in Montreal for a public “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminar. I had the opportunity to get together with Kevin Kyte, a partner at … Read More
Via @BrianStewartOH I learned of this article in the Washington Post about a contract between Alabama State University and its new president. The contract contains the following provision: For so long as Dr. Boyd is President and a single person, she shall not be allowed to cohabitate in the President’s residence with any person with whom she has a romantic relation. … Read More
I’ve long been aware of contracts promulgated by FIDIC, an international standards organization for the construction industry. But I’d lost track of whether I’d written anything about FIDIC contracts, so during my recent Abu Dhabi seminar I confidently proclaimed that I had. When one of the participants subsequently pointed out that it appeared that in fact I hadn’t, I knew that I had to … Read More
Recently someone reminded me of the ISDA master agreement, the widely used form of master contract for over-the-counter derivatives transactions. It was last updated in 2002, and after I found a copy of the 2002 version online here, I had a look at it. My conclusion? The drafting is pretty ragged. No surprise there—I’ve looked at a few examples of … Read More
To be filed under “There but for the grace of God go I”: Via @Deadline, I came upon this story in the Hollywood Reporter. Here’s the opening paragraph: A California appeals court has affirmed Paramount’s win in a legal dispute with a Morgan Stanley-backed film-finance entity that alleged it was forced to pick up some of the tab when one of … Read More
