OK, which do you like better: nonsolicitation provision no-soliciting provision And here: nondisparagement provision no-disparaging provision And here: noncompetition provision no-competing provision Me, I like the second option in each. The first option is a clunky abstract noun. Boo. The second is a gerund, basically a verb form acting as a noun. (More on gerunds here.) Less clunky. Yay.
This week I received the following inquiry from a reader: I’m a lawyer, and I’ve been working with contracts for the past five years. Your blog has been the first place I look for guidance on drafting questions. Thank you for being a great resource. I find that many lawyers resist implementing the modern approaches you discuss. Typically, I feel … Read More
The language of contracts in English is basically the same the world over, but with local variations. In the course of my work for LegalSifter this week, I learned of one such variation—the English affinity for the word, uh, variation. Or more specifically, the combination amendment or variation. Actually, it’s not only the English who indulge in this: you see the … Read More
There’s a specialized kind of business contract that I’ll call “general terms”—a document created by a company or other organization to describe how its system operates. A set of general terms might describe how Acme sells widgets to many different buyers, or it might describe a network, with different kinds of entities playing different roles. A set of general terms … Read More
Today I received the following inquiry from reader Ryan: I’m curious if you have a view on a practice that continues to baffle me. In the process of negotiating tri-party or multi-party agreements and exchanging drafts or mark-ups via e-mail to a large distribution of the parties and their counsel, some attorneys always include something like the following: “Please note … Read More
Some of my hard-core readers have probably grown disenchanted with this blog. “Oooh, Mr. Globetrotter went to Denmark!” “Oooh, Mr. Fancypants is doing the artificial-intelligence thing!” Well, I still got it, bitchez. Courtesy of Fabian Schäfer, SAP’s Chief Expert in Legal Information Management, check out the following (emphasis added): AFFILIATE shall mean a corporation, company or other entity, now or … Read More
I’ve seen more than my fair share of unfortunate drafting, but my work for LegalSifter has exposed me to a whole new level of stoopid. This post is on the LegalSifter blog. Go here to read the rest.
The Fourth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting is now available on Amazon. Actually, it’s been available for a few weeks, but at the ABA price, and without a Kindle version. Now the other shoe has dropped: Amazon has cut the price, although the discount varies from negligible to not-so-negligible. More significantly, the Kindle version is now … Read More
A reader introduced me to a recent opinion of the Texas Court of Appeals in TEC Olmos, LLC v. ConocoPhillips Co., No. 01-16-00579-CV, 2018 WL 2437449, (Tex. App. 31 May 2018) (PDF here). It raises an interesting issue relating to force majeure provisions, one that has featured in other opinions. Rather than summarize the facts and the proceedings, I’ll cut … Read More
My seminar partner Thomson Reuters Asia has posted information for the following upcoming “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars: Mumbai, 4 October 2018 Singapore, 10 October 2018 Hong Kong, 12 October 2018 Tokyo, 14 November 2018 I look forward to all these seminars, but the Mumbai seminar will be my first in India. Heck, it will be my first visit to India, … Read More
