[Updated June 4, 2009]
I’m pleased to announce that starting June 11, I’ll be offering through West LegalEdcenter a series of seven video webcasts entitled “Drafting Clearer Contracts.”
Each webcast will be an hour long. They’ll be rolled out one by one through the second half of July. Five of the webcasts will explore topics discussed in my book A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting and will consist of annotated PowerPoint presentations plus crystal-clear audio. The remaining two webcasts, which you will be able to view free of charge, will consist of conversations with others, with accompanying PowerPoint presentation. The first will be on the benefits of clarity and how to effect change; the second will be on contract automation. Here’s the complete list, with links to the relevant West LegalEdcenter page:
- The Front and Back of the Contract
- Categories of Contract Language
- Defined Terms; Ambiguity
- Select Words and Phrases
- Drafting as Writing; Layout and Typography
- The Benefits of Clarity; Effecting Change
- Automating the Contract Process
On the day it’s first offered and sporadically thereafter, each webcast will be offered “live,” which means I’ll be on hand to respond, online, to any questions. (Whether or not a webcast is live has CLE implications in some U.S. states.) In addition, after it’s run live for the first time, each webcast will be available for download on demand.
Individuals can register and pay with a credit card the US$99 per-webcast price for the first five webcasts. If five or more people in your organization would like to watch a webcast as a group, discounts are available; please email the sales department of West LegalEdcenter to find out more. Contact them too if you’d like to find out about subscribing to West LegalEdcenter—your subscription would include my webcasts.
I’m delighted to be offering these webcasts. It’s long been clear to me that given the commitment involved, those attending my live seminars represent a small fraction of the potential audience for what I have to offer. I hope that making my instruction available online and in one-hour installments will serve to make it much more accessible, particularly to those for whom travel to one of my U.S. or Canadian seminars isn’t an option. I’d be grateful if you’d spread the word, particularly outside the U.S.
In coordination with West LegalEdcenter and my other seminar partner, Osgoode Professional Development, I’m using launch of the webcasts as an occasion to rebrand my seminars. Starting this fall or beginning 2010, they’ll be given the same name as that given the series of webcasts—”Drafting Clearer Contracts.” For more about my West LegalEdcenter seminars, go here; for more about my Osgoode seminars, go here.
Another development is that my webcasts and my seminars will be sponsored by Business Integrity, developer of ContractExpress DealBuilder, the leading document-assembly solution for company law departments and law firms.
Longtime readers will know that I’ve long had a close relationship with Business Integrity and its CEO, Tim Allen, and that in my writings I’ve often referred to DealBuilder. For more about my relationship with Business Integrity, see this news release on BI’s website.
For those who are squeamish about the notion of sponsorship, BI’s sponsorship will have no effect on the content of my offerings. And more generally, BI’s sponsorship reinforces something that I emphasize constantly—fixing contract language requires fixing the contract process. Business Integrity and I are essentially fighting the same battle, and having them sponsor me is just another way of acknowledging that.
