The photo above shows the spines of all five editions of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. It doesn’t bring to mind anything particularly profound—just two thoughts. First, when considered from day to day, what I do has been more fun than it has any right to be. But if you consider the totality of it, you realize that … Read More
Not only did the pandemic upend the speaking-engagement world, I also get the sense that things won’t be going back to the way they were. For example, one organization I’ve worked with has told me they’ve had limited demand for in-person programs, so most of their programs have remained online. That’s a drastic change from before the pandemic. Uncertainty over … Read More
So the fifth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting has been unleashed. (Buy it here!) You own the fourth edition and are wondering whether you should fork over for MSCD5 US$139.95 plus any tax and shipping. If working with contracts is an important part of what you do and you’ve found MSCD4 valuable, I think you’d appreciate … Read More
This week I was noodling with some contract language, and I wrote the Company or any of its Members. That was a mistake—Member was defined to mean a member of the Company, not a member of any limited liability company. I should have said the Company or any Member. I was attuned to this because the day before I had … Read More
So much for mid-April! Print copies of the fifth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting are now available for purchase from the American Bar Association, here, for US$139.95. For the next six months, that’s the only place you’ll be able to buy it. If you’re located outside the US, you’ll have to pay a significant shipping fee. … Read More
In this 2020 blog post, entitled somewhat gradiosely The Deafening Silence: Why People Generally Don’t Take Me On in the Marketplace of Ideas, I explain why, well, people generally don’t take me on in the marketplace of ideas. But this article by Katy Barnett of Melbourne Law School got me to thinking further about the role that academics play, or … Read More
It would be hard to think of something more unfashionable than a book review, but book reviews perform a valuable service. The in-depth expertise required to tackle a demanding subject likely resides in books, but most of those looking to benefit from that expertise necessarily won’t possess the expertise required to evaluate that expertise. (Catch-22!) Book reviews can help people … Read More
These days I don’t write much about legaltech for contracts. There’s way too much of it. And I don’t do deals, so I’m not in much of a position to put such products through their paces. But I’m making an exception with this Q&A with Steven Gullion, of CrossCheck. CrossCheck looks for technical glitches that can afflict use of defined … Read More
This week, I received an email with this opening line: “Researching the topic of contract drafting, I seem to keep stumbling across your content as the subject matter expert.” And yesterday I noticed that the ACC Docket has designated my article with Michael Fleming on reviewing contracts (here) as one of 2022’s Most Read Docket Articles. This sort of recognition … Read More
My online course Drafting Clearer Contracts: Masterclass has been on a brief hiatus while I waited to learn when the fifth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting would be available. As I announced in this blog post, MSCD5 will be available in mid-April 2023, so that has allowed me to schedule the first four 2023 public series … Read More
