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Gatekeepers, Scriveners, Enthusiasts, Influencers, Cheerleaders, and Clearinghouses: A Short History of Recent Legal Commentary

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Legal commentary has gone through changes in the past twenty years that are comparable to what has happened to all commentary, in this country and throughout the world. Here are my impressions. Gatekeepers and Scriveners Twenty years ago, if I wanted to publish an article, I had a handful of possible outlets owned by various media companies and bar associations. … Read More

Where My Article on the Ambiguous “Material” Is Headed

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I’ve occasionally mentioned on social media that I was working on an article about how the word material is ambiguous. Well, I finished it. The title is The Word Material Is Ambiguous in Contracts, Why That’s a Problem, and How to Fix It. It will be published next year in Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, but I’ll put a “forthcoming” … Read More

“End of Agreement”?

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The drafting gods are toying with me! I sent the publisher the final manuscript of the fifth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. The next day, I saw something I haven’t seen before that deserves to appear in MSCD5: the phrase End of Agreement. After I saw it in one contract, I of course went on EDGAR, … Read More

Is Clarifying the Scope of a Definition Worth It?

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Last week I tweeted this image: In the tweet, I said this: There’s a disconnect in meaning between the definition (green) and the defined term (red). The way to fix it is by “clarifying the scope” of the definition: adding a phrase-plus-comma at the beginning of the defined-term parenthetical. Any suggestions? In a reply, I offered this fix, while acknowledging … Read More

MSCD5: Hunting Down Internal Inconsistency

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There’s me, and there’s my writings. If you want to know what I think about something, you might want to start by consulting my writings, rather than asking me. I’ve been writing about this stuff for more than 20 years, and a lot of it is complicated, so I can only keep some of it in my mind at any … Read More

How Do You Learn How to Review a Contract?

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Learning how to review a contract is the same as learning how to draft a contract: you have to know what to say and how to say it clearly and concisely. Of course, when you’re drafting, you’re in control, and you have a copy-and-paste starting point that you got from somewhere, so you can appear that you know what you’re … Read More

MSCD5: A New Opening to the Chapter on the Categories of Contract Language

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Perhaps the most distinctive part of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting is chapter 3, The Categories of Contract Language. It addresses how to use verb structures to establish, clearly and concisely, your intended meaning. To get a sense of what it involves, see the “quick reference” chart that’s part of the chapter; you can get to it through … Read More

What We Talk About When We Talk About Ambiguity

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It’s best to understand what we mean when we say contract language is ambiguous. For linguists, text is ambiguous if it’s capable of expressing two or more inconsistent meanings. If some who read a contract provision think it means one thing and others think it means something else, that provision is ambiguous. Because ambiguity creates confusion and causes many contract … Read More

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Innovative scholarship. Extensive writings. Hundreds of Drafting Clearer Contracts presentations around the world. Commitment. That’s what makes Ken Adams the unmatched authority on clearer contract language.

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