I have a standing offer: if you send me one of your templates, I’ll tell you how I’d fix it. One of my seminar customers took me up on my offer. I thought you might find my response of interest, so here it is, lightly redacted: When assessing a contract, I consider five factors: what the contract says, how it … Read More
A participant at a recent “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminar sent me an email saying how much they had enjoyed the seminar. They went on to say that “incorporating the concepts into our templates and drafting will require a slow, steady cultural change.” Regardless of whether cultural change has to be slow and steady, I suggest that it doesn’t reflect reality … Read More
I divide my time between giving seminars and helping companies upgrade their contract templates. Here are some reasons why you might not want to hire me for the latter service. “Our templates are great.” Actually, it’s likely that in terms of what they say and how they say it, your templates are somewhere between a train wreck and in need … Read More
In this post I say why it’s important to be systematic about applying effective contract-drafting usages systematically. But in my consulting work, that’s only a small part of the story. If, as is usually the case, I’m charged with producing a new version of a template that uses traditional contract language, my work consists of way more than fine-tuning the … Read More
Most of my consulting work is for big companies. Because of economies of scale, it’s worth their while for them to hire me. But occasionally I get a different sort of consulting client. A recent example was Jonathan Feigenbaum. He’s a sole practitioner, based in Boston. Heck, he’s not even a transactional guy—he handles benefit claims. It’s awkward to ask … Read More
In this post I mention that I troubleshoot company templates. I’ll now explain why that service that has value. Contract-drafting is long and life is short, particularly if decisions regarding contract drafting are left to the individuals in an organization. You’re a fan of clear and modern contract language? That’s great, but you have some obstacles to overcome before you … Read More
I figured that rather than just speaking generally about dysfunctional contract templates, it might be helpful if I give you a sense of the different kinds of dysfunction I see. So I’ve co-opted the “defense readiness condition,” or “DEFCON,” alert state used by the U.S. armed forces. It prescribes five graduated levels of readiness (or states of alert) for the U.S. … Read More
I’ve become acutely aware that many companies find change hard to swallow. (See this March 2017 post for examples of how companies can choke on change.) Inspired by a project I just did for a global manufacturing company, I’ve come up with a way I can help you if you can’t handle much change: give me your templates and for … Read More
Because my notion of a library of automated commercial contracts remains a distant prospect, what I have to offer in the way of contracts to copy is exceedingly limited. There is, of course, my automated confidentiality agreement. (See this post and this article on LinkedIn.) It remains way better than anything else out there. But I also have a separation … Read More
LinkedIn is my preferred forum for stuff that you, dear reader, have heard many times on this blog. In that spirit, today I posted on LinkedIn an article entitled What Level of Dysfunction in Your Contracts Is Acceptable? My notion is that if I keep hammering away, people will get my point. Or get fed up.
