Process

What Paul Stregevsky Said About What I Do

I know people find what I do worthwhile. Some individuals and organizations buy copies of MSCD. Others pay for the training I provide. And sporadically, people make a point of saying they find MSCD valuable, find my training worthwhile; I pass some of that feedback along to you all. That’s all to the good, but there’s no need to make … Read More

Getting Contract-Drafting Stuff Done

I was among the few million people who noticed a video of President Obama urging young people to become known for getting stuff done. Here’s the tie-in to contract drafting: It would indeed be to a junior person’s benefit to acquire a reputation for getting stuff done. That requires competence. I suggest that for purposes of contract drafting, being an … Read More

Be Careful Where You Get Your Contracts Expertise

This is from a 20 June 2022 Artificial Lawyer item entitled CLM Without Expert Legal Input Is “Quite Scary”, about how the UK-based law firm Addleshaw Goddard (AG) is helping clients implement contract-lifecycle-management (CLM) systems: The rest of this post is on the LegalSifter blog, here.

Contract Drafting and the Tragedy of the Commons

You’re familiar with “the tragedy of the commons,” right? Individual users have open access to a resource. In using that resource, they’re unconstrained by formal rules or shared social structures, so each user acts independently according to their own self-interest. But that’s inconsistent with the common good, because through their uncoordinated action, users deplete that resource. Hence the tragedy. The … Read More

oneNDA Is mediocreNDA: Thoughts on a Proposed Standard Nondisclosure Agreement

oneNDA is a new initiative that “set out on a mission to standardise the NDA so that lawyers can spend less time on them and more time on more valuable work.” For more about oneNDA, go here. This week they released their “simple, plain English, open-source NDA,” also called, somewhat confusingly, oneNDA. My verdict is that it’s mediocre and doesn’t … Read More

Count Words, Not Pages

Excuse me if I quote my own tweet: Let's start using number of words, instead of number of pages, to say how long a contract is. Reading 1,500 words won't go any faster because it's on 3 pages instead of 4. In fact, it might take longer, if you use gimmicks like shrinking the font to fit it on one … Read More

Overcoming the Structural Advantages of Lawyers in Doing Contracts Work

In this recent article and this recent blog post, I argue that nothing prevents nonlawyers from handling deals and wrangling contract language—that what matters is competence, not which hat you wear. But to assess realistically the prospects of nonlawyers in the world of contracts, you have to recognize two factors that favor lawyers. Law School as a Credential First, lawyers … Read More

The Role of Lawyers in Disaggregated Contracts Work: A Response to Susskind and Eisenberg

Future-of-law commentator Richard Susskind has written with Neville Eisenberg, a partner in Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, this article in the current issue of The Practice. It’s entitled Vertically Integrated Legal Service, and it reflects a vision of the future of legal services that, when it comes to handling contracts, is at odds with my experience and what LegalSifter is doing. … Read More

“Contracting Center of Excellence”?

I was tempted to do an in-depth post about this EY survey, entitled The General Counsel Imperative: How Does Contracting Complexity Hide Clear Profitability? But the more I looked at it, the less I had to say about it. But this random tidbit grabbed my attention: Establish a contracting center of excellence (CoE). A dedicated team set up in a … Read More