Generally, parentheses are of limited use in contracts. As MSCD says, “The limited and stylized prose of contracts isn’t the place for explanations and asides, so drafters should have no reason to use parentheses to serve that function.” But parentheses do serve a few specific functions. For example, MSCD says that “if you need to express that two different arrangements … Read More
I was tickled to note this article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel regarding Kanye West’s deranged political campaign. Here’s the relevant bit: West’s campaign is arguing he belongs on the presidential ballot in Wisconsin even if his campaign turned in his nomination signatures 14 seconds after the 5 p.m. deadline Aug. 4. The 23-page document, filed Monday, says a state … Read More
No one owes it to me to take me on or to engage in discussion. But after a certain point, the silence becomes deafening. This past week I did a blog post entitled Many Judges Are Bad at Textual Interpretation. What Do We Do About It? The first half consists of my critique of textual interpretation offered in a recent … Read More
This is the first week of the first three series of my new course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass. It has had its nerve-wracking moments. Ah, yes, I have to remember to mute the second incarnation of myself that I invite to join each Zoom session to annotate a PowerPoint presentation. And a tropical-storm-induced power outage always adds excitement. I’m quickly … Read More
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
