The series of Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass that’s set to start on Tuesday, 12 January 2021, at 7:00 am Eastern Time (US and Canada) is now open to everyone, not just people in Asia and the Middle East. Given that Asia and the Middle East encompasses a whole bunch of cultures, it seemed silly to exclude anyone. So people in … Read More
Five new series of my online course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass start in January 2021. (Go here for the course home page.) The first session of each of the series begins on these dates and at these times: Series (7) (Asia & Middle East Only), Tuesday, 12 January 2021, 19.00 GMT+8 Hong Kong Series (8) (UK & Ireland Only), Wednesday, … Read More
I love me some effective government services. For example, I recall how a few years ago I realized at midnight one night that I needed to get a new passport for my grand seminar tour of Asia. My flight for Tokyo was leaving early evening the next day. Thanks to the passport office on Houston Street, I was able to … Read More
This past week I wrapped up the first three series (apart from trial series) of my new online course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass. On thing that’s clear is that for many people, pandemic life is hectic. I ended up moving several people to a later series because of some crisis or other. And plenty of people missed sessions for various … Read More
I’m getting the hang of Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass. I’m no Zoom maestro, but I’ve sorted out my two-device setup (so I can annotate my PowerPoint presentation while keeping an eye on things), and it’s been a while since I screwed things up. And my ring light shows my ravaged mug to great effect! I’m pleased with Thinkific, the learning … Read More
In today’s post about nonlawyers and contract drafting (here), I offer contract managers a discount on my new online course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass. Why contract managers? Why not other nonlawyer constituencies? One reason is that contract managers might be the biggest, most homogenous nonlawyer bloc working with contracts. But mainly it’s because I’ve long thought that contract managers might … Read More
Recently I tweeted this: Legal builds contracts because lawyers are good at claiming turf. Contracts are business documents: that they're legally enforceable and contain dispute resolution provisions isn't a reason to make them a legal fiefdom. Give them to people skilled in deals and contract language. — Ken Adams (@AdamsDrafting) August 16, 2020 I’ll now explain myself in more than … Read More
If you’re an individual and you want to sign up for my new online course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass, you go to the course home page, here. But if you’re a company, law firm, or government agency, you contact me directly. That’s what two companies did, and soon I’ll start a series of Masterclass for each of them. One will … Read More
This is the first week of the first three series of my new course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass. It has had its nerve-wracking moments. Ah, yes, I have to remember to mute the second incarnation of myself that I invite to join each Zoom session to annotate a PowerPoint presentation. And a tropical-storm-induced power outage always adds excitement. I’m quickly … Read More
The legal profession is afflicted by systemic problems, some urgent, some chronic. But here’s one you might not be aware of: it appears that many judges are ill-equipped to perform basic textual interpretation. Such a generalization has to be grounded in specifics, so let’s look at a recent opinion issued by the Minnesota Court of Appeals, State v. Khalil, No. … Read More
