In my recent post on moral turpitude, I noted that I found odd the phrase “its reasonable but good faith opinion,” and a couple of commenters weighed in on that. So I thought I should take a more general look at the relationship between those two concepts. But I’ll start by considering in this post how the notion of reasonableness … Read More
Two people with a lot of contracts experience have told me that they think that Koncision’s confidentiality-agreement template contains too many questions. They suggested that I whittle down the questions and incorporate in the template a middle-ground position with respect to the topics addressed in those questions. I’m grateful for the input I’ve received, but that’s a suggestion I won’t … Read More
It’s relatively commonplace for contracts to point the reader to terms contained on a website. It follows that electronic versions of such contracts often hyperlink those URLs. But recently someone asked me about using hyperlinks for a different purpose, namely to speed cross-referencing within a Word document. You can hyperlink the entries in a table of contents, as well as … Read More
I recently learned of a Wisconsin appellate case, Appleton Papers, Inc. v. Andritz, Inc., 2011 WL 867754 (Wis. Ct. App.) It provides an interesting example of the confusion that can follow if you misdiagnose the sources of uncertainty in contract language. The defendant, Andritz, had granted the plaintiff an option to purchase equipment, then had refused to sell at the … Read More
Mark Anderson is an English solicitor specializing in IP law. He’s founder of Anderson & Company (go here for his bio on his firm’s website). He’s also a prolific writer on contract drafting—he makes me look like a piker! I have a stack of four of his books that I’ll be perusing in the coming weeks; you can expect something … Read More
I’m pleased to announce that West LegalEdcenter has now made available the webcast “The Structure of M&A Contracts.” Click here to go to the page for the webcast at West LegalEdcenter’s website. The webcast constitutes an introduction to, and overview of the subjects discussed in, my book entitled—wait for it—The Structure of M&A Contracts. (Click here for more information about … Read More
Via the ContractsProf Blog, I learned of this item in the Philadelphia Inquirer about recent developments in a case brought against defense contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root, Inc. (KBR). It was brought by the parents of staff sergeant Ryan Maseth, who died after being electrocuted in a shower at a U.S. military base in Iraq for which KBR had contracted … Read More
Even with all my Koncision activities, the seminar show must go on. Last week I was in Tampa for the first time, doing my “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminar for West LegalEdcenter. I was pleased to have a significant BigLaw contingent present, as I’ve previously noted (including in this November 2009 post on AdamsDrafting) that law firms have been underrepresented at … Read More
If you were to try to perform yourself all the analysis and research required to do your work, you’d likely run out of time before you had really gotten started—to some extent, you build on what others have done. That’s clearly the case when it comes to contract drafting. More than any other kind of legal writing, it’s precedent driven: … Read More
Our confidentiality-agreement template is just our first product. Next will be a version for the international market. After that, we may produce a “boilerplate” template containing all the stuff you find at the back of most contracts. It might even include—gasp!—indemnification provisions. But beyond that, we plan on producing templates of different kinds of contracts. For that, we’ll need access … Read More
