In November, I head to Asia—I’m giving seminars in Seoul, Tokyo, and Singapore. I’m particularly looking forward to my seminar in Tokyo. It will be my first trip to Japan in 25 years, and my first seminar in Japan. (For more information, go here.) I haven’t had much occasion to engage with Japanese contracts professionals. I expect that the seminar … Read More
Yesterday I saw an English template contract that had in the signature blocks three brackets (or rather, closing parentheses) one on top of the other. I recall Mark Anderson (aka @IPDraughts) have mentioned that practice at some point, so I asked him about it again. Here’s what he said: You are supposed to sign in the space to the right … Read More
In addition to bringing in outside lawyers to take part in my “intensive” Contract Drafting course at Notre Dame Law School (as described in this post), I wrapped up the course with a drafting project for an outside organization. More specifically, we prepared our version of a new template contract for Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA). … Read More
A good number of law firms are ContractExpress customers. Goodwin Procter. Latham & Watkins. Perkins Coie. Wilson Sonsini. And so on. But recently I’ve spoken with a few BigLaw partners who have said that they don’t currently use contract automation and have no plans to do so. This post is on Contract-Automation Clearinghouse. To see the rest, go here. Contract-Automation Clearinghouse … Read More
[Updated October 24, 2014: The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling. (Go here for a PDF copy of the opinion; thank you to Steven Sholk for sending me a copy.) Here’s most of what the court had to say on this issue (citations omitted): Absent explicit language demonstrating the parties’ intent to bind future affiliates of the contracting … Read More
This summer I had the following exchange on Twitter with @DevonMSmiley: Having a spot of contract drafting writer's block…anyone have tips for how to break through it? — Devon Smiley (@DevonMSmiley) July 10, 2014 @KonciseD For me, it's having concepts and key words, but nothing is gelling into real language. But I do love the challenge! — Devon Smiley (@DevonMSmiley) … Read More
On December 3, I’m giving a public “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminar in Toronto with my longtime partner, Osgoode Professional Development. For more information, go here. But I’m particularly interested in what comes after that: On December 4, I’m doing for the first time a new seminar entitled—excuse me while I catch my breath—”Advanced ‘Drafting Clearer Contracts’: An Intensive Program in … Read More
I spotted an oddity in section 1(a) of the contract providing for Jeff Bezos’s purchase of the Washington Post. Observe where the defined-term parenthetical is positioned (italics added): To the extent not already owned by the Post Subsidiaries, the Transactions shall include the transfer to the Purchaser or the Post Subsidiaries of any other assets primarily related to the Post Business (other than … Read More
A tidbit to come out this week’s panel discussion at Notre Dame Law School (see this post) was, courtesy of Glenn West, a citation to a poignant Florida case, Espresso Disposition Corp. 1 v. Santana Sales & Mktg. Grp., Inc., 105 So. 3d 592 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2013) (PDF here). This post is on Contract-Automation Clearinghouse. To see the … Read More
I made it a point to have outside lawyers play a part in my course at Notre Dame Law School. I don’t know from pedagogy, so not a lot of forethought went into that decision. I simply figured that I should try to give my students a glimpse of the role of contract drafting in the larger world, rather than just the … Read More
