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
Recently someone pointed out a typo in the fifth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. (More about that thrilling topic soon!) In an email to them, I joked about awarding them the “Crimson Lightning Bolt for Glitch-Finding Valor.” That got me wondering what such a medal might look like. Because I now have in my corner Moh … Read More
In this post I discuss the illustration above. It graces one of the T-shirts and one of the mugs on offer in my new A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting merchandise store (here). I set up my store as a light-hearted way to allow those who value MSCD to express that. But if anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing … Read More
Last week, a couple of dozen participants joined me in session 2 of a public series of my online course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass. The topic was what I call “the categories of contract language”—my framework for how to determine what kind of meaning you wish to use in each sentence in a contract and what verb structure you use … Read More
Yesterday I launched an online store to sell A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting T-shirts and mugs. Why? For the heck of it. See this blog post for more. The items on sale feature, in addition to the cover of MSCD, the design in the image above, which was the winning entry in a contest I ran on 99designs. … Read More
Have you yearned for A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting merchandise? Well, your days of yearning are now over: go here to buy two kinds of MSCD T-shirt (both short-sleeve and long-sleeve) and two kinds of mug! Wait, that’s not quite as crass as it seems! First, I’ll donate all proceeds to a worthy cause, the Belmont Child Care … Read More
I’ve dabbled in governing-law provisions. Here are the relevant blog posts from my list of stuff I’ve written on boilerplate (here): Blog post, Including Federal Law in Governing-Law Provisions (4 June 2021) Blog post, Revisiting Governing-Law Provisions (1 Aug. 2019) Blog post, Simplifying Governing-Law Provisions, Part 3 (“Governs” and the Alternatives) (15 July 2015) Blog post, Simplifying Governing-Law Provisions, Part 2 (Renvoi!) (13 July 2015) Blog post, Simplifying Governing-Law … Read More
