I belatedly realized that my presentation at Clio Cloud Conference 2016, entitled “Traditional Contract Drafting Is The Worst,” is available online. I can’t imagine anyone sitting through the entire thing. But if you’ve ever wondered what my schtick is like, dipping into the video below would give you a glimpse of me in all my gawky glory. (I wouldn’t dream … Read More
In 2014 an odd little episode occurred. A friend told me that I should check out the website of the Lithuanian law firm Linden. As I noted here, one of the photos they have in rotation shows the second edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting peeking out from a briefcase. I took that as a sign from the … Read More
Last Sunday and Monday I gave back-to-back “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The seminars were held at the impressive offices of the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration and were arranged by the Commercial Law Development Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce. My thanks to the SCCA for their gracious hospitality. My thanks also to CLDP for making … Read More
[Trigger warning: navel contemplation follows.] This morning I noticed the following two combative tweets, courtesy of @section_sign: https://twitter.com/section_sign/status/905408538738126848 Regular readers will know that I regularly invoke the marketplace of ideas. Well, is the marketplace of ideas in fact horseshit? I have nothing to say about that Tower of Babel, the broader marketplace. The marketplace in which I ply my wares—the … Read More
The fall issue of the magazine Judicature contains my article with Vice Chancellor Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery, entitled When Contracts Seek to Preempt Judicial Discretion. Go here for a PDF copy. I leave it to others to judge the content, but I think this article gets high marks for originality in terms of the topic alone: I’ve … Read More
Most of my consulting work is for big companies. Because of economies of scale, it’s worth their while for them to hire me. But occasionally I get a different sort of consulting client. A recent example was Jonathan Feigenbaum. He’s a sole practitioner, based in Boston. Heck, he’s not even a transactional guy—he handles benefit claims. It’s awkward to ask … Read More
What, you want to know more? Read this.
Today a reader posted the following comment (found here): Ken, I have been pushing your rules about shall and must since I started drafting contracts. Recently, a colleague said that we should use must exclusively. He pointed to the following link to bolster his case: https://www.faa.gov/about/i… I wanted to point it out for your opinion. Thanks If you want to … Read More
I feel it’s my civic duty to keep you posted of Glenn West’s latest offerings. There’s his post What Is the Deal with No-Oral-Modification/Waiver Clauses? And there’s his most recent post, Avoiding the Mindless Use of the Brainless MAC Clause. Here’s the gist of the latter: In negotiating carve-outs, bear in mind that not including a carve-out for a particular circumstance when … Read More
[Updated 4 August 2017, 9:45 a.m. EDT] Yikes! This is my second update to this post. (I inserted the first update below, in the original post.) In the past 24 hours I’ve considered this issue for the first time, proposed something new, then had readers drag me in another direction. I now happily bow to the logic of those who … Read More
