Plenty of you appreciate what I do. I know that because I hear from you. And plenty of you have given me written testimonials; for example, go here, here, here, and here. But I’d like to help foster more of a sense of community—yes, a community of contract-language nerds, but still a community—by having you share your impressions in […]
Another Conversation with Mark Anderson
Ken: I’m here with Mark Anderson, an English lawyer who specializes in IP transactions. He’s also a blogger and the co-author or editor of too many books related to contracts. I’ve mentioned him plenty on my blog, and we’ve done some interesting stuff together—just search for his name on my blog. Mark: I see you […]
Let’s Look at Elizabeth Warren’s Proposed Release Language
[Updated 1:40 a.m. 21 February 2020 to expand the analysis to address additional text in the screenshot Warren tweeted.] On 19 February, the Nation published this article by Ken Klippenstein about the Bloomberg campaign’s confidentiality agreement. The article contained this link to a copy of the confidentiality agreement. All I have to say about it […]
On Trashing Stuff
Yesterday I saw this tweet: Trash a person, an idea, an institution – how easy, how lazy. Nothing genius about being obnoxious, nor cool about bullying. Nothing gained except attention, a sport for truculents, a frenzy for trolls. All diminished. Hollow, shallow and nothing whatsoever to do with leadership. — Paul Gilbert (@LBCWiseCounsel) February 18, […]
Unnecessary Quotation Marks in “Contract” Language
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: […]
Kevin Heaney on Montana Real Estate Transactions
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 […]
Always Be Learning
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 […]
The Secrets of the “Ready Player One” Contract
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 […]
Me Saying Stuff
In recent weeks I’ve had occasion to ruminate in public: Here’s my conversation with Casey Flaherty (@DCaseyF), recorded by LegalSifter at the CLOC 2018 Institute: Go here for Christian Lang‘s episode “Voices of CLOC 2018,” on the podcast Blacklines & Billables. (My utterances are at 6:00, 20:00, and 27:51.) And go here for this item by […]
Venturing into Substance
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 […]