Last week I asked this on Twitter: Is there a kind of term you really DON'T want to see in the other side's draft contract? Something that sets the alarm bells ringing? pic.twitter.com/8ICeW8OAQ4 — Ken Adams (@AdamsDrafting) March 11, 2021 And I posed the same question in a post on the LinkedIn group for A Manual of Style for Contract … Read More
No, you’re not dreaming! I’ve done a video critiquing a random couple of sentences plucked from EDGAR that deal with jurisdiction stuff. Well, OK, it might not be quite that compelling. But here’s what it does have going for it: it’s clear from the data that you people would rather pluck your eyeballs from your head than watch anything longer … Read More
Starting in 2018, when I joined LegalSifter as a consultant, I’ve helped design the specifications for our “Sifters”—algorithms intended to spot a given issue expressed in contracts. Although I’m now LegalSifter’s chief content officer and have an array of responsibilities to match, I still create sifter specs. It’s work that’s conducive to humility, for reasons I’ll now explain. This post … Read More
When it comes to skills relevant to business, I’m good at one thing and pretty terrible at the rest. Kevin Miller, LegalSifter’s CEO, is good at a whole bunch of stuff; I salute him. What the heck, this week he even did this post, entitled What We Mean When We Talk About Our Expertise, on LegalSifter’s blog. It mentions my … Read More
I noted with interest Casey Flaherty’s recent post entitled The Limits of Incremental Improvements. This sentence captures the gist of it: “[O]nce you cut something in half, there is nothing you can do, save eliminating it entirely, that will ever again deliver the same raw level of improvement.” This post is on LegalSifter’s blog. To read the rest of it, … Read More
I recently found myself once more poking around the entrails of confidentiality agreements. The issue related to one of the core obligations, namely the obligation not to disclose confidential information. (The other is the obligation not to use confidential information except as specified.) The rest of this post is on the LegalSifter blog, here.
Here’s the beginning of my new post on LegalSifter’s blog: This week I had the pleasure of visiting North Falmouth, Massachusetts. (Hence the photo.) I was there to do a “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminar for the global contracts team of a multinational. But this post isn’t about the seminar. Instead, it’s about the fact that I couldn’t help occasionally thinking … Read More
After almost a year working on the factory floor at LegalSifter, it has become clear to me that contract review and contract drafting are closely allied functions. … This post is on LegalSifter’s blog. To read the rest of it, go here.
Last April I told you in this post that I had become an advisor to LegalSifter, the company that’s developing software to help you review the other side’s draft contracts. What do I have to announce now? Well, nothing in particular. I’m simply continuing to do my part. In addition to doing consulting work, and roaming around giving seminars, and hacking away at … Read More
As a follow-up to their 2009 article naming me one of their original batch of Legal Rebels, I’m featured in a new ABA Journal Legal Rebels podcast that focuses on my work with LegalSifter. And there’s also an article. You can find both of them here. The 2009 article about me is apparently no longer online *sob* but for yucks, … Read More
