From 22 April to 25 April I’ll be in Las Vegas. No, I won’t be desultorily pulling at the handle of a slot machine. Instead, I’ll be with the LegalSifter team at the 2018 CLOC Institute. CLOC stands for Corporate Legal Operations Consortium. I’ve not attended a CLOC event, but I’m looking forward to it: I expect that legal-operations personnel … Read More
Today I received the following email from a reader: I have been reading your post from July 2012 (Revisiting “Indemnify”).” There seems to be an important distinction between “indemnify” and “hold-harmless” that seems to be getting overlooked (or I missed something in my brief reading). According to Black’s Law Dictionary “hold-harmless” means “to absolve (another party) from any responsibility for … Read More
Go here for an article by Lizzy McLennan in The Legal Intelligencer about my joining LegalSifter (free registration required). It accurately summarizes what we have in mind. Well, I’m not sure I hail from Long Island :-)
You recall that recent post about LawGeex’s AI-versus-humans study (here)? In that post I mention LegalSifter, another company that uses technology to make review of the other side’s drafts quicker and more effective. Well, soon after that post, Kevin Miller, LegalSifter’s chief executive officer, invited me to join LegalSifter as an advisor. I happily accepted. Go here for LegalSifter’s news release. It … Read More
Sporadically I hear from readers who simply want to thank me for my work. I know people read my stuff, but it’s gratifying when someone takes the time to let me know that they’ve found it worthwhile. Because it’s a particularly nice example of this sort of communication, here’s an email I received yesterday: EMAIL MESSAGE THIS EMAIL is written … Read More
In a couple of weeks I’ll be in Geneva for my intime public “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars. For more information, go here. My wife and I lived in Geneva for three years in the 1990s, my daughter was born there, and my brother lives there, so I always enjoy visiting Geneva. I’ve given perhaps a dozen seminars in Geneva to … Read More
I’ve been doing public and in-house “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars for, oh, 14 years now. That’s because people find them worthwhile and, shockingly enough, somewhat entertaining. Otherwise, I would have gotten the hook long ago. So the feedback is positive, but occasionally participants suggest I adjust my approach. For example, here’s what a participant at my recent New York seminar … Read More
I’m a contract-drafting guy, but I have to acknowledge that drafting contracts might not be the most annoying part of the day-to-day contracts process. Assume that Acme does ten deals with ten different companies in which it drafts the contracts using its templates. Then assume that it does those deals using the other guy’s drafts. Odds are that in the … Read More
I looked at the Stormy Daniels confidentiality agreement, the one intended to keep under wraps her fling with Trump—excuse me, her alleged fling. I figured it would have been remiss of me not to look at it. (It’s exhibit 1 to her complaint, here. If you’re not familiar with her and the saga of this confidentiality agreement, go here for … Read More
MSCD guidelines mostly fly under the radar. Apart from a couple of notorious recommendations—I’m talking about you, this agreement with a small a and states instead of represents and warrants—the guidelines don’t attract attention to themselves. But sometimes traditionalists gonna traditional, so you might get a draft back with all sorts of unhelpful traditionalist comments. As I note in this … Read More
