In this post on his Law Department Management blog, Rees Morrision—prolific consultant to law departments—quotes a survey in the July 2008 issue of Inside Counsel as saying “33.5% of in-house counsel reported that law firm services are a commodity.”
Here’s Rees’s take on this:
Loyalty rates of law departments to law firms suggest otherwise, and incessant fee […]
In this post on his Goldman’s Observations blog, Eric Goldman describes a dispute between FaceTime Communications and Reuters.
Reuters licensed FaceTime’s software for two years and devoted significant resources to customizing the software. Reuters had an option to pay $150,000 for a perpetual license, but for reasons that aren’t entirely explained, Reuters didn’t exercise the option […]
Eric Goldman recently sent me the following inquiry:
A typical vendor’s contract will say something like “Customer shall pay invoiced amounts within 30 days of invoicing.” With some frequency, customers have been marking up this language to read: “Customer shall pay *UNDISPUTED* invoiced amounts within 30 days of invoicing.” From a vendor’s perspective, I think the […]
Through this post by Michael Fleming on the Cyberspace Lawyer’s Blogger, I learned that the Cyberspace Law Committee of the ABA Section of Business Law is proposing to draft new model contracts. This project sounds interesting:
The Liberty Alliance Project is, in its own words, working to “enable a networked world based on open standards where consumers, citizens, […]
For those who like planning in advance, here are my West Legalworks seminar dates for 2009:
Feb. 24, Houston
Mar. 3, Atlanta
April 9, Cleveland
May 7, Chicago
June 2, Philadelphia
July 16, Seattle
Sept. 15, Los Angeles
Sept. 24, Washington, D.C.
Oct. 13, Minneapolis
Oct. 27, Boston
Nov. 17, New York
Dec. 8, San Francisco
I’m pleased that West Legalworks opted to re-up for another year. That […]
The May 2008 issue of The Business Lawyer contains a great article by Glenn D. West and Sara G. Duran of Weil Gotshal entitled “Reassessing the ‘Consequences’ of Consequential Damage Waivers in Acquisition Agreements.” Click here for a copy.
Here’s the abstract:
Consequential damage waivers are a frequent part of merger and acquisition agreements involving private company […]
I have a soft spot for nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs (also known as confidentiality agreements): They’re relatively short and straightforward, yet they’re subtle enough that drafters routinely screw them up. And they’re commonplace; in fact, they’re something of a nuisance—the cockroach of the contract-drafting world. These characteristics mean that they’re the obvious guinea pig for […]
A common feature of M&A contracts is the “earnout” provision—a provision that specifies that the purchase price will be increased if the business being acquired meets, post-closing, stated financial-performance targets.
If you’re interested in earnout provisions, of if you’d just like to see yet one more example of how lackadaisical drafting can result in litigation, you might […]
Thanks to the litigation in Lawler Mfg. v. Bradley Corp., recently I discovered the nuances of such as. That led me to write about such as in this post.
Yesterday I received a message from Wayne Turner, a litigation partner in the downtown Indianapolis office of Bingham McHale. I enjoyed Wayne’s message, and I thought you […]
Publication of the second edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting is fast approaching. One sign is that a page for the book is now up on the ABA’s Web Store. (For the first six months, it will be available only through the ABA.) Check out the sharp new cover!
Even more to the […]
A reader recently asked me the following question:
We frequently sign global services agreements that provide that the parent company is signing “for and on behalf” of an affiliate. What do you think of this practice?
I’m uncertain about having a parent sign a contract on behalf of an affiliate. (In any event, the words “for and” […]
Here’s what Garner’s Modern American Usage has to say about anniversary:
anniversary (= the day of the year on which an event occurred in a previous year) is today used informally to denote a milestone in months or even weeks. That usage has become increasingly common, perhaps because there is no convenient equivalent for terms shorter […]
Embassy Suites Portland Downtown
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AMA Exec. Conference Center
Windows on Minnesota
Downtown Harvard Club of Boston
The Manhattan Club at Rosie O’Grady’s
University Club of San Francisco
