Here’s what I say in MSCD 16.58–60: One way to signal the start of a new paragraph is to indent the first line. Another way is to put space between paragraphs. Typography professionals recommend that you not use both techniques. For example, Typography for Lawyers, at 136–37, says, “First-line indents and space between paragraphs have the same relationship as belts and suspenders. You only … Read More
Regular readers will be familiar with the MSCD enumeration scheme. It’s described in excruciating detail in MSCD chapter 4, as well as in this 2012 post. But I’m keenly aware that the MSCD scheme doesn’t appeal to everybody. This past week, that included a consulting client. That caused the scales to fall from my eyes: in addition to offering my exquisitely … Read More
Yesterday I saw this tweet: #30plainwords. 27. Instead of using therefore, chooseso. #IPLAINDAY. http://t.co/IzOAfqHk7c Join tweet-up #talkplain2015 Oct 13 9am PT — Kate Whiteside (@keykate) October 9, 2015 Hardly a shocking proposition, but it brought to mind the one place in a contract that features therefore, the lead-in: The parties therefore agree as follows: So why not use so instead: … Read More
[Updated October 5, 2015: This post has been quarantined, and at some point I’ll quietly take it off life support. My revised version of the sample language got caught up in the issue discussed in this post: purchase is one thing, payment of the purchase price is another, so it doesn’t make sense to say that you buy something by paying … Read More
As I noted in this 2013 post, I’ve long thought that it would be valuable to do a study of what proportion of contract disputes are caused by problematic contract drafting. Well, this notion has advanced from the hypothetical to the possible. So here are some thoughts as to how this might be done: I assume that it would make senses … Read More
Only one person (other than me!) can be counted on to write law-review articles relevant to the building blocks of contract language. That person is Glenn West. It’s a red-letter day when a new Glenn West article plops off the production line, and today I received from the man himself a copy of Consequential Damages Redux: An Updated Study of the Ubiquitous and Problematic “Excluded Losses” … Read More
The registration information isn’t up yet, but here are the dates for my 2016 seminars in the United States with West LegalEdcenter: March 24, Austin, TX April 21, Pittsburgh, PA May 19, Chicago, IL June 9, Morristown, NY June 23, Seattle, WA September 15, Boston, MA September 22, Indianapolis, IN October 6, Washington, DC October 27, Minneapolis, MN November 3, … Read More
I’ve written several posts, most recently here, about why it’s a bad idea to use both words and digits to express a number. This post is about something else relating to numbers: the notion that you should use only digits to express all numbers. I’ve long recommend that you use words for numbers one through ten and digits for 11 … Read More
I recently saw this tweet by @CherylStephens: Contract says "Company has the right to request" when it means "can require." Right? Otherwise, just says they can ask? — CherylStephens.com (@CherylStephens) September 12, 2015 Ah, I said to myself, may request! Categories-of-contract-language issue 24,773! So I popped some penicillin and waded into EDGAR. Here’s a taxonomy of may request. Restrictive Relative Clause … Read More
The ACC Docket has just published (here) my article Fixing Your Contracts: What Training in Contract Drafting Can and Can’t Do. My co-author is Chris Lemens, a longtime reader and commenter. I have no particular gloss to put on this article. If any thoughts come to mind, by all means put them in the comments.
