Glenn West has been pumping out articles so fast that I haven’t kept up. I’ve started looking at the backlog; if I have anything to add, I’ll do so. That’s what I’m doing now, because this post was inspired by Glenn’s article Transactional Lawyering as an Art: When Saying Less Is More Than Enough, Business Law Today (11 Feb. 2025). … Read More
Thanks to longtime tipster Steven Sholk, I learned of the recent opinion of the First Circuit in Dahua Technology USA, Inc. v. Feng Zhang (here). The language at issue is in the image at the top of this post, but the key component is “the Company agrees to make monthly severance payments to you in the amount of $680,000 for … Read More
Over the years, I’ve written plenty about the practice of expressing numbers using both words and digits, as in five (5) days’ notice. In MSCD, I recommend using words for one through ten and digits for 11 and up (with some obvious exceptions). I also discuss using only digits. (Go here for an extract of the relevant pages.) But I’ve … Read More
Now that all my scheduled public Drafting Clearer Contracts training has wrapped up, I’ve been asked politely when I’m going to get my act together and schedule more training. Well, that time is now! Here’s what I’ve just scheduled: For more information, and to register, go here. I wouldn’t get to keep doing this training if people didn’t find it … Read More
I belatedly noticed that Glenn West has written another Business Law Today article. This one is entitled On the Meaning of “Material”. In it, he cites my 2023 law review article The Word Material Is Ambiguous in Contracts, Why That’s a Problem, and How to Fix It. It’s nice that someone noticed it! 🙂 Here are a couple of thoughts … Read More
This week, Adams Contracts launched a new service agreement template (see this post on the Adams Contracts blog). Whom did that rouse? Kevin Toll, the Adams Contracts client featured in this blog post from earlier this year. Turning on the new template a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, he pointed out how I had managed to ignore some … Read More
I saw discussion on LinkedIn about whether one might use metrics to assess training in contract drafting. Here’s why I think that ain’t happening. How to Say Clearly and Concisely What You Want to Say in a Contract First, what’s meant by training in contract drafting? Let’s assume it refers to the kind of training I offer—training in how to … Read More
In this post from a few months ago, I wrote about doing my first in-person Drafting Clearer Contracts presentation in four years. It involved little in the way of travel—just taking the Long Island Rail Road to Manhattan. But since then, I’ve done two out-of-town gigs. This is about one I did recently. It was for a group of around … Read More
Alé Dalton, a healthcare partner at the Nashville office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, saw fit to do a LinkedIn post about A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. And I reckon it’s the most engaging and digestible take on MSCD since, well, forever! It’s in the form of a carousel—a series of images you click through. Check it … Read More
[Updated 11 September 2024: I’ve been fiddling with what article headings to use and moving sections around. I expect that will continue for a bit!] You’re drafting a contract that’s big enough for you to group sections into articles, so the contract is easier to navigate. What do you call the boilerplate at the back? “Boilerplate” would be too cryptic … Read More
