Translator Elizabeth Adams posted in the LinkedIn group A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting (here) the image below. I had seen that image previously, in the context of discussion of whether buying a bag of grapes medical marijuana makes you party to a contract. Yeah, that’s interesting, but Elizabeth pointed out something waaaaay more interesting: […]

All my blather wouldn’t signify much without people willing to make use of my recommendations. One such person is Kevin Heaney, partner in the Billings, Montana, commercial department of the law firm Crowley Fleck PLLP. That’s him to the right. Kevin attended one of my “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars, and he’s made no secret of the fact […]

As Alec Baldwin didn’t say, A. B. L. Always be learning. I’ve spent much of the past couple of weeks working on a law-review article. In the course of that work, I’ve learned something new about four different topics: The sorites paradox. It’s invaluable for putting vagueness in context. For more, go to Wikipedia and […]

You all know how I earn a living, but it’s a sideshow to my real passion, the time my contracts buddies and I spend in an immersive contracts virtual reality. There you might find, for example, @IPDraughts playing Hadley, @AlexHamiltonRad playing Baxendale, and me playing the crucial role of “another,” Hadley’s partner. It all takes […]

In this post from last November, I suggested that the glory days of this blog are over. That might have been a bit premature. In that post, I said that my focus will be building contracts that comply with my guidelines. I now realize—duh—that that will involve wrestling with all sorts of substantive issues. For an […]

Sporadically I hear from readers who simply want to thank me for my work. I know people read my stuff, but it’s gratifying when someone takes the time to let me know that they’ve found it worthwhile. Because it’s a particularly nice example of this sort of communication, here’s an email I received yesterday: EMAIL […]

Does contract prose matter? Of course it does. Even if you assume that the parties have notionally agreed on the terms of the deal, how you express those terms in a contract can determine how that transaction fares. But many people who work with contracts don’t realize that. Some might be contract managers who regard […]

From a reader: I can usually get opposing counsel to shut up by pointing to your blog or book. This is what progress looks like.

Above is a screenshot my daughter sent me a few days ago, showing texts she exchanged with a friend. “Hahaha” indeed. I thought of it on reading Casey Flaherty’s post touching on my work (here). Casey accurately summarizes my, uh, lack of restraint. I know some people wonder why I’m so in-your-face. A commentator on […]