I periodically do my best to dump cold water on the notion that one can crowdsource quality contract language. I did so in this 2010 post, in this 2011 post, and in this post and this post in 2013. I now permit myself to do so again after reading this post on Open Law Lab, maintained by Margaret Hagan. It’s entitled “Githubbing Law: Open-Source Legal … Read More
Yesterday’s “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminar for the Utah State Bar included something new and different—an hour on professionalism and ethics. Legal ethics can be a narrow topic, but with the addition of “professionalism,” I allowed myself to expand the discussion to address different ways one can create problems for oneself in the contract process by being sneaky and the bad things … Read More
I just used in this post a phrase I coined half an hour ago: “negotiation theater.” It refers to the time that lawyers waste negotiating lawyers-only contract deal points that have no basis in reality. Some examples: Whether to neutralize “double materiality” (see this 2013 blog post). Whether to use reasonable efforts or best efforts. Or commercially reasonable efforts. Or reasonable … Read More
A blog post by Tim Cummins of IACCM entitled “Contract Drafting, Communications & Risk” (here) met with quite a bit of approval on Twitter. So I looked at it, then looked at it again. Tim, I hope you’ll permit me some comments from the peanut gallery. Of course I agree entirely with the premise of Tim’s post: Contracts that fail to … Read More
I recently saw this article by Fred Krebs suggesting, very sensibly, that “general counsel have a significant opportunity to help lead corporate innovation.” I used to think that although a company’s rank and file might be wedded to turgid traditional contract language and a ponderous copy-and-paste contract process, the odds of change would greatly improve if I were able to … Read More
I noted with interest Tim Cummins’s post asking whether contract managers and lawyers actually care about contract results (here). Read the post for yourself, but here are the bits that caught my eye: How many contract and commercial managers, how many lawyers, actually care about the quality of the contracts they produce? How many actively monitor or seek to learn … Read More
It’s easy to find on Twitter people eager to embrace as a “tipping point” every questionable come-to-us-for-your-contracts offering. Express skepticism and they might invoke Clayton Christensen, much as one would brandish a crucifix, or garlic, or whatever, at a vampire. (Your ears burning, @jordan_law21? :-) ) The buzzword is “disruption.” But some people are pushing back at the notion of … Read More
I have a list with hyperlinks to my blog posts and articles about the contracts process. Periodically I update it; go here for the most recent version. But if you’re interested in the contracts process, you’ll also want to check out @theContractsGuy‘s posts on how to sign a contract (here) and keeping track of contract versions (here).
Cousin Joshua Stein pointed out to me this post on Above the Law. It’s by Keith Lee, who has his own site, Associate’s Mind. Keith’s post is about the perils of hasty change: Put simply, don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up. Policies and procedures that are in place are likely … Read More
I was interested to learn, via @martinertl, of an article on Slate.com by Jessica Olien (@jessicaolien) entitled Inside the Box: People Actually Don’t Like Creativity (here). I recommend that you read the entire article, but here are some bits that caught my eye and seemed relevant to what I’m trying to do: This is the thing about creativity that is … Read More
