The legal profession is afflicted by systemic problems, some urgent, some chronic. But here’s one you might not be aware of: it appears that many judges are ill-equipped to perform basic textual interpretation. Such a generalization has to be grounded in specifics, so let’s look at a recent opinion issued by the Minnesota Court of Appeals, State v. Khalil, No. … Read More
On Thursday, 6 August 2020, at 8:00 a.m. PT, I’m doing a Law Insider webinar entitled “Training in Contract Drafting; What Works, What Doesn’t Work, and Why It’s Not Enough.” Go here to register. Obviously I have training on my mind, what with launch of my new course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass. But the webinar won’t be me politely extolling … Read More
I’m blessed with idiot-savant semantic acuity but cursed by a lack of any training in grammar or linguistics. That makes for an awkward combination: I recognize when something is going on in a sentence, then I hit the books and, if necessary, go for help. (See this post about my ambiguity sensei, Rodney Huddleston.) That played out yesterday. I made … Read More
Today’s I offer you another interesting contracts verb structure, hereby instructs. Here are some examples from EDGAR: The Employee hereby instructs the Company to transfer to such Managers Insurance and/or Pension Plan the amount of Employee ’s and the Company’s contribution from the Monthly Salary, as detailed in Annex A. The Collateral Manager hereby instructs the Collection Account Bank, on … Read More
It’s an interesting business, having a storefront for my course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass. If you go to the home page, you’ll see that I’ve added some stuff. Value Proposition I’ve added this paragraph to explain the value of the course: Why take Masterclass? Because traditional contract language is dysfunctional. It’s full of archaisms, redundancies, random verb structures, and ill-conceived conventional … Read More
Today I joined Colin Cannell, Gabe Meister, and Jen Roemershauser in a 30-minute conversation about my recently launched course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass. They’re well equipped to discuss the course because they took part in the trial version of it and lived to tell the tale. My thanks to Colin, Gabe, and Jen for taking the time to join me. … Read More
Plenty of you appreciate what I do. I know that because I hear from you. And plenty of you have given me written testimonials; for example, go here, here, here, and here. But I’d like to help foster more of a sense of community—yes, a community of contract-language nerds, but still a community—by having you share your impressions in a more, uh, intimate form. … Read More
With this blog post, yesterday I launched my new online course, Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass. Now let me tell you more about what the course covers. The course outline provides an overview of what’s required to prepare for each session and what we discuss in each session. For more detail, click on “Register Now” on the home page (or click … Read More
I’m pleased to announce that you can now register for my new online course, Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass. The Course This course is built around eight live hour-long sessions held once a week and supplemented by reading, quizzes, and short assignments. Go here for the course outline. The goal is to help you say clearly whatever you want to say … Read More
In this post from late last year, I said I didn’t think I would ever travel as much as I did in 2019. But when I wrote it, I of course didn’t expect things to fall off a cliff they way they have. I’ve travelled only once this year, in March, for a seminar in Chicago. It had a last-helicopter-from-Saigon … Read More
