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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Today’s bit of advice: Don’t make some other contract part of your contract. That was prompted by this item by the Canadian law firm Bennett Jones. It involves a case before the British Columbia Supreme Court in which a general contractor wanted to refer the dispute to arbitration. The subcontract didn’t contain an arbitration provision, but the prime contract did. And … Read More
Yes, similarly and similar are vague. Vague can lead to fights, so you have to be careful about vague. (See this 2018 post about a vagueness fight over similar.) But that’s not what post is about. Instead, it’s about two similarly glitches. Consider this use of similarly: In case of any reclassification or reorganization … , or in the case … Read More
Let me get one thing out of the way: ** I’m not against “legal design.” ** Instead, the issue I have with legal design is that in my experience, enthusiasm for legal design tends to be inversely proportional to command of legal prose. Which brings us to cartoon contracts, more specifically this week’s article in the Wall Street Journal entitled … Read More
