If you would like to spend 42 minutes listening to me discuss what I do in response to questions from an experienced interviewer, go here. The interviewer is law professor Brian L. Frye and the forum is his long-running Ipse Dixit podcast. (I’m interviewee 780!) Why listen to this kind of interview? Perhaps to get a conversational summary of a … Read More
Today I received a tip from reader Brad Axelrod. He told me about the recent opinion of the Delaware Court of Chancery in Intrepid Investments (here). This case involves a fight over interpretation of a provision in which the parties agreed to exclusive jurisdiction of Delaware courts “[a]s to any dispute, claim, or litigation arising out of or relating in … Read More
In 2021 I implemented digital credentials for my online course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass. I’ve now revisited the process and fixed some omissions. This post tells you how to get the credentials and how to use them. To get the digital credentials, you have to click through every lesson in the curriculum, then click the button inviting you to get … Read More
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
This morning, while I was banging out an email, Grammarly saw fit to offer the following suggestion: Hmm. Interesting. Should we say data-sharing agreement, not data sharing agreement? Some background is in order. This is from Garner’s Modern English Usage 827 (5th ed.): When a phrase functions as an adjective preceding the noun it modifies … the phrase should ordinarily … 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.
Series of Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass continue to sell out, and the feedback continues to be positive, so why stop now! I’ve just made available three new series of Masterclass: The goal of Masterclass is to help you become a better-informed consumer of contract language. It’s the antidote to the copy-and-paste machine and its doppelganger, generative AI. For more information … Read More
A recent post on LinkedIn (here) attracted more attention than usual (by my modest standards), so here’s a screenshot: The blog post mentioned is here.
In this 2018 blog post, I made available what I called the “quick reference” chart outlining my “categories of contract language” framework. Yesterday someone asked me whether that was still the most current version available for download, so I thought it appropriate to make available the version from the fifth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. So … Read More
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
