In this March 2022 post, I examined an article by Eric Martinez, Frank Mollica, and Edward Gibson about their study showing that contracts are poorly written. I said that this article tells us nothing we don’t already know. The same authors are now back with another article, this one entitled Even Lawyers Do Not Like Legalese (here), published in the … Read More
Yes, in recent weeks you’ve heard plenty about my Drafting Clearer Contracts training, but feedback suggests a summary would be helpful. So here you go! If you think of ways I could improve it, please let me know. For the “More information” URLs in the chart, click here for presentations and here for Masterclass.
As a change from my default option—the written word—here’s a video of me explaining, briefly, what my Drafting Clearer Contracts training is about. The next series of Masterclass starts on 8 June 2023; the first instance of Presentation is on 27 and 28 June 2023. I hope to see some of you at one or the other! For more information, … Read More
On 27 and 28 June 2023 and on 12 and 13 September 2023, I’ll be doing my first-ever online public Drafting Clearer Contracts presentations. I’ve expanded my training site to reflect that—go here for more information. These presentations are more accessible than, and offer better value than, presentations I’ve done previously. Allow me to explain. Since 2006, I’ve done hundreds … Read More
Yesterday I saw this tweet by Kaitlyn Fydenkevez: I have spent a large portion of my day fighting over whether a particular contract should refer to itself as “this Form” or “this form”. @AdamsDrafting, what have you done? What we’re seeing here is what happens when you eat the fruit of the contract-drafting tree of knowledge—you look around with new … Read More
A reader pointed out this post by John Coyle on the Transnational Litigation Blog. It concerns litigation over this provision: This agreement is governed by the laws of Ireland. If we bring an action to enforce this agreement, we will bring it in the jurisdiction where you have your headquarters. If you bring an action to enforce this agreement, you … Read More
Consider the noun talent. It can be used to refer collectively to musicians or actors, especially star performers. In that context, I’m used to it coming out of the mouths of managers, record-company executives, and others looking to make money off of artists. It gives off a whiff of condescension, even denigration. That brings us to the noun content. In … Read More
In this 2014 post I express a preference for individual when referring a human being, and I haven’t shifted from that. But today I saw this post by Keith Paul Bishop. Here’s the relevant part: However, corporations may have a variety constituent parts, but they are quite literally bodies (corpus is the Latin word for a body). Thus, it may … Read More
This week I noticed a new blog, Improving Contracts. It’s by Chris Simkins, a commercial lawyer based in the UK; he’s Head of Contract Optimisation at Simmons & Simmons, the global law firm. (Nice title!) The blog has the tagline “A blog about creating better contracts,” but I asked Chris for a bit more detail, and here’s what he said: I’ve … Read More
Compared with what was in the fourth edition, chapter 12 (Syntactic Ambiguity) of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting has changed little. (I added a section on delimiting commas in coordination and a section on multiple instances of syntactic ambiguity in a sentence, but that’s pretty much it.) That shouldn’t come as a surprise. That chapter and the other … Read More
