On 30 August, Joanne and I should have been in Nashville to see for the first time Steve Earle and his band in concert, but COVID put the kibosh on that. Instead, we saw Colin Hay at the City Winery in New York City. This year I’ve found myself listening more closely than previously to both Earle and Hay. And … Read More
You might have heard that LegalSifter is looking to hire someone to work with me in creating our algorithms (“Sifters”) and writing the advice we give users. For more information, go to Indeed or LinkedIn. On Saturday I published this stream-of-consciousness post on my blog about the position. Now I’d like to address more directly why this position might be … Read More
From this post on D.C. Toedt’s blog I learned about Miller v. Honkamp Krueger Fin. Servs., Inc., No. 20-3061, 2021 WL 3729047 (8th Cir. Aug. 24, 2021) (PDF here). It’s of interest as an instance of a drafter making an odd mistake. In 2006 Miller entered into an employment agreement with HKFS. Among other things, it said that “for a … Read More
LegalSifter is looking to hire someone to work with me in designing our algorithms (we call them “Sifters”) and writing the advice we give users. For more information, go to Indeed or LinkedIn. To get a better sense of the kind of work I do, I suggest you read my posts on LegalSifter’s blog. But some context might also be helpful. … Read More
Yesterday I learned of an opinion—hot off the presses—of the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, Division One, by Judge Kelly C. Broniec. The case is Pelopidas, LLC v. Keller, No. ED 109395, 2021 WL 3501988 (Mo. Ct. App. 10 Aug. 2021) (PDF here). This opinion concerns Keller’s appeal of a lower court decision interpreting the following sentence from a … Read More
When I joined LegalSifter as chief content officer after having been on my own for fifteen years, I entered a process-driven world. I’m now part of a production line that combines technology and expertise to create software and advice. There’s lots to keep track of, so we’d be lost without our databases. This post is on LegalSifter’s blog. To read … Read More
Thank you to the readers who told me about Omni MedSci v. Apple (Fed. Cir. 2 Aug. 2021) (PDF here). They heard about it from this post on Patently-O. And in this post on IP Draughts, Mark Anderson expresses interest in having me comment on this case. Who am I to disappoint Mark? I’ll leave you to read those posts … Read More
I’m used to thinking of redundancy (actual or potential) as occurring at the level of parts of speech. For example, in doublets or triplets of adjectives (null and void). Or verbs (indemnify and hold harmless). But I’m becoming more attuned to redundancy of entire provisions. (By provision, I mean a complete utterance, whether a sentence or part of a sentence.) … Read More
oneNDA is a new initiative that “set out on a mission to standardise the NDA so that lawyers can spend less time on them and more time on more valuable work.” For more about oneNDA, go here. This week they released their “simple, plain English, open-source NDA,” also called, somewhat confusingly, oneNDA. My verdict is that it’s mediocre and doesn’t … Read More
Wearing my LegalSifter hat, today I researched how contracts refer to inspection of goods. In doing so, I encountered the following in this Yara purchase order (selected at random): All Goods may be inspected by the Purchaser within a reasonable time after delivery to the location required by the Purchaser. If on inspection, any Goods are found to be unsatisfactory, … Read More
