In this 2020 blog post, I say that no one takes me on in the marketplace of ideas. Nothing has changed in the years since.
I’ll spare you any editorializing. Instead, I offer you … a contest! I invite you to critique my article Eliminating the Phrase Represents and Warrants from Contracts, 16 Tennessee Journal of Business Law 203 (2015). I’ll send a copy of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting (signed, if you wish) to whoever submits the best critique.
Why that article? Because I think it’s well-reasoned and shockingly novel, and because it shines a light on the rot at the heart of copy-and-pasting.
A critique doesn’t have to be negative—if someone agrees with my conclusions but offers some interesting observations, they’d be eligible to win. If I find all submissions underwhelming, no one will get the book. If I’m impressed by more than one submission, I’ll get hold of more copies of MSCD!
My writings on represents and warrants have prompted two responses. See this 2006 blog post about the late Tina Stark’s response to my 2005 Business Law Today article on the subject, and see this item by Stephen Sepinuck in response to my 2015 Business Law Today article on, yes, the same subject. But they don’t critique my arguments; instead, they just offer their version of the conventional wisdom. If you want to win this contest by challenging my article, you’ll have to find fault with elements of my argument.
I think my articles show me to be a scholar. (You don’t have to be an academic to be a scholar, and being an academic doesn’t make you a scholar.) Similarly, challenging my ideas might require the mindset of a scholar.
Submit your critique to to me by 1 August 2026. Send it to me by email at kadams@adamsdrafting.com, in either an email message or a Word document. Unless I get your consent, I won’t do anything other than read what you send me. In particular, I won’t make it public.
I’m under no illusions that I’m going to receive a flood of submissions! There’s a reason no one else on the planet does what I do. If I get one submission offering an interesting take, I’ll call that a win.
