Blog

On Trashing Stuff

Yesterday I saw this tweet: Trash a person, an idea, an institution – how easy, how lazy. Nothing genius about being obnoxious, nor cool about bullying. Nothing gained except attention, a sport for truculents, a frenzy for trolls. All diminished. Hollow, shallow and nothing whatsoever to do with leadership. — Paul Gilbert (@LBCWiseCounsel) February 18, 2020 I’ll now proceed to … Read More

More “Endeavours” Twaddle

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with Glenn West. When it comes to analysis of contract boilerplate with big-deal implications, no one comes close to Glenn. But Glenn has a mischievous side. He’ll sporadically send me stuff that he must know will irritate me; I imagine him hitting “Send” with a bit of a cackle. In the past … Read More

Disappointed I’m Not Doing a “Drafting Clearer Contracts” Seminar in Your City? You Could Do Something About That

You can find on this page the roster of cities around the world where I’m doing “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars in 2020. I’m look forward to the seminars: they’re fun for me and, amazingly enough, those who attend. The seminar business is a tough one: I’m in my fifteenth year of doing these seminars because participants find them valuable and … Read More

The Obligation Not to Disclose Versus the Obligation to Keep Confidential

I recently found myself once more poking around the entrails of confidentiality agreements. The issue related to one of the core obligations, namely the obligation not to disclose confidential information. (The other is the obligation not to use confidential information except as specified.) The rest of this post is on the LegalSifter blog, here.

Dual Verb Structures: “May But Is Not Required To”

In my newfound zeal for dual verb structures, I’ve written about the following examples shall grant and hereby grants has granted and hereby grants be and hereby is Each of those examples features two inconsistent verb structures ostensibly working together. I now offer you two verb structures that say the same thing, with the second offered as an exception to … Read More

Dual Verb Structures: “Be and Hereby Is”

In the impeachment proceedings before the U.S. Senate yesterday, Chief Justice Roberts announced that Trump “be, and he is hereby, acquitted.” BREAKING: Chief Justice John Roberts: "It is therefore ordered and adjudged that the said Donald John Trump be, and he is hereby, acquitted of the charges in said articles." https://t.co/cKgbkhVYFL pic.twitter.com/CSkOR6tJzI — Evan McMurry (@evanmcmurry) February 5, 2020 Given … Read More

More Syntactic Ambiguity and Comma Confusion: Glasser v. Hilton Grand Vacations Co., LLC

In this November 2019 post I wrote about Princeton Excess & Surplus Lines Insurance Co. v. Hub City Enterprises, Inc., a court opinion from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in which a judge demonstrated catastrophic misunderstanding of how the English language works. In an update to that post earlier this month, I noted that in … Read More

Don’t Give Multiple Persons a Singular Collective Defined Term

Today I noticed this tweet: VCs: "don't you dare send an NDA before meeting with us or you're a joke. ideas are worthless." Also VCs: "welcome to our office please use this nice iPad to sign a one-way NDA. our ideas are worth everything." pic.twitter.com/U8kxkTNcRM — Jonathon Barkl (@jonathonbarkl) January 29, 2020 As a fan of found contract text, I … Read More