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Now Available: My Law-Review Article “Interpreting and Drafting ‘Efforts’ Provisions: From Unreason to Reason”

15 July 201915 July 2019 by Ken Adams

The summer 2019 issue of The Business Lawyer—the law review published by the Business Law Section of the ABA—contains my article Interpreting and Drafting Efforts Provisions: From Unreason to Reason. Go here for a PDF. No one has ever offered an even halfway serious attempt to explain a distinction between different efforts (or endeavours) provisions, or lack of a distinction. … Read More

Information Now Up for My 14 November 2019 Seoul “Drafting Clearer Contracts” Seminar

14 July 2019 by Ken Adams

As promised, go here for information about my 14 November 2019 “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminar in Seoul, organized by my partner LAWnB, a Thomson Reuters entity. As usual, the registration information is in Korean, but go here for a brochure in English. I’m looking forward to it, of course. I always enjoy my visits to Seoul. Koreans might find of … Read More

Book Review: “Garner’s Guidelines for Drafting and Editing Contracts,” by Bryan A. Garner

6 August 20198 July 2019 by Ken Adams

Bryan Garner is a big name in legal lexicography, litigation writing, and guidance on general English usage. He has a new book out, on contract drafting. It’s called Garner’s Guidelines for Drafting and Editing Contracts, and it’s not good. But first, why write a review? Because using any reference work requires a leap of faith, and book reviews help readers … Read More

Another Kind of “Including” Ambiguity

2 July 20191 July 2019 by Ken Adams

I noted with interest an article entitled “Including Without Limitation” (in this issue of The Transactional Lawyer), by Stephen L. Sepinuck of Gonzaga University School of Law. I’ll discuss later in this post the part about including without limitation. But let’s start with what is for me the more interesting part—the last two columns, in particular the following description of … Read More

Instances of “Best Efforts” and “Reasonable Efforts” in the Corpus of Contemporary American English

16 July 20191 July 2019 by Ken Adams

My article Interpreting and Drafting Efforts Provisions: From Unreason to Reason is in the summer 2019 issue of the journal The Business Lawyer, published by the Section of Business Law of the American Bar Association. (PDF here.) The article refers to instances of the phrases best efforts and reasonable efforts the Corpus of Contemporary American English, or COCA. Go here … Read More

“Hereby Binds Itself To”

24 June 2019 by Ken Adams

It’s been a long time since I’ve offered you an effed-up way to impose an obligation on the subject of a sentence. With that in mind, I now proudly present *drum roll* hereby binds itself to! Mostly, hereby binds itself to is used as a needless variant of hereby assumes all obligations under, or some such. But here are some … Read More

A Copy of MSCD for Each Seminar Participant

23 June 2019 by Ken Adams

The title of this post sounds aspirational, rather like “A chicken in every pot.” But it’s not: instead, it’s how I conduct my “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars. I suppose at some seminars the speaker introduces you to their approach to something, with the seminar acting as a teaser. If you like the seminar, you have the option of investing in … Read More

My Surface Pro 4 Is Dead, Long Live My Surface Pro 6!

20 June 2019 by Ken Adams

I’ve had my Microsoft Surface Pro 4 for three and a half years. It’s a travel laptop, and it’s been perfect for what I do. It’s light, so humping it around the world hasn’t been a problem. It’s plenty powerful and capacious. And I’ve used it in tablet form to do PowerPoint presentations for my “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars. Using … Read More

“Drafting Clearer Contracts” Seminars: Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Tokyo, Seoul!

17 July 201910 June 2019 by Ken Adams

Behold the following “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars: Mumbai, 10 October 2019 Kuala Lumpur, 15 October 2019 Singapore, 16 October 2019 Hong Kong, 18 October 2019 Dubai, 21 October 2019 Tokyo, 12 November 2019 Seoul, 14 November 2019 Add to that my 28 and 29 October seminars in Toronto (details to come), my 5 November seminar in London, and my 7 … Read More

Please Explain This “Electronic Signature” Oddity

9 June 2019 by Ken Adams

Below is the signature page from a Courtyard Marriott group sales agreement I found online. I know next to nothing about electronic signatures, but I found decidedly odd the e-signature process specified in this contract. “Replace Empty Box with Blackened Box Here to Enter Into Binding Obligation”? And check out the note at the bottom about how you can do … Read More

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