27 Thursday Sep 2018
Posted in Boilerplate Forms, Contract Law, Legal Writing
How I Would Go About Redrafting Your Templates, by Ken Adams, Adams On Contract Drafting Blog
http://www.adamsdrafting.com/how-i-would-go-about-redrafting-your-templates/
Ken Adams has made a “standing offer.” If you send him one of your contract templates, he will take the time to edit it.
Wow. Even if you are the best contract writer in the world, why wouldn’t you take Mr. Adams’ up on such a generous offer? Opportunities such as this do not come along every day. Thank you, Mr. Adams! -CCE
09 Wednesday Sep 2015
Posted in Boilerplate Forms, Contract Law, Employment Contracts, Employment Law
≈ Comments Off on A Different Kind of Employment Contract.
The Employment Contract Between Bilbo Baggins and the Dwarves, by Louis J. Sirico, Jr., Legal Skills Blog
Louis J. Sirico, Jr., posted this interesting observation about employment contract law. If you have not read the book or seen the movie, The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, this example is going to sound a bit odd.
Before Bilbo Baggins is hired by dwarves to join a quest to conquer a dragon and take back a mountain full of gold, he must sign an unique employment contract. In the book, Mr. Tolkien wrote a fifty-three word employment contract. It is easy to read and understand.
In the movie, the director wanted something more dramatic. The writer took on the challenge and looked to real contracts including his own. The result is a doozy. -CCE
02 Monday Mar 2015
Posted in Boilerplate Forms, Boilerplate Forms, Contract Law, Editing, Legal Writing, Legalese, Readability, Style Manuals
≈ Comments Off on Ken Adams Shares What It Takes To Be A Great Contract Writer.
What It Takes to Be a Great Contract Drafter, by Ken Adams, Adams On Contract Drafting
http://www.adamsdrafting.com/what-it-takes-to-be-a-great-contract-drafter/
If you write or work with contracts, this is a “must read” post by Ken Adams. Drafting a good contract is a special type of legal writing. A good, solid contract is a work of art. Also, please don’t ignore the Comments at the end of the post. There’s more good information there as well. -CCE
Here’s what it takes to be a great contract drafter:
Know the deal mechanics. As a drafter, it’s your job to express the transaction in a way that advances your client’s interests most effectively. You can’t do that unless you’re aware of the full range of options for structuring the deal. I don’t mean to suggest that you yourself have to possess that information—it’s enough if you’re able to pick the brains of people with that information.
Know the law. With some transactions, there’s no need for the law to rear its head in the contract. In other transactions, it would be appropriate, or necessary, for the law to feature in the contract. I discuss that in this 2013 post. As drafter, it’s your job to figure out what role, if any, the law plays in your transaction. Again, it’s enough if you can get that information from others.
Follow a comprehensive style guide. You don’t follow a comprehensive set of guidelines for the building blocks of contract language? Sorry, you’re not a great drafter. You’re not even a good drafter. Instead, you’re parroting whatever contract language you copy, which is likely dysfunctional. You’re following conventional wisdom, which more often than not is bogus. Don’t throw at me your education, your reputation, your long list of publications, your compensation, your track record as a dealmaker. They’re all beside the point. Of course, the only set of guidelines out there is A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting, but don’t hold that against me. I’m not stopping anyone else from producing their own comprehensive set of guidelines. And following my guidelines isn’t rocket science. . . .
17 Tuesday Feb 2015
Posted in Bad Legal Writing, Boilerplate Forms, Boilerplate Forms, Contract Law, Legal Writing, Legalese
≈ Comments Off on “Know All Men By These Presents” — Who’s Getting All The Gifts?
Presents? Thank You Very — Oh, by Raymond Ward, the (new) legal writer blog
http://raymondpward.typepad.com/newlegalwriter/2012/01/presents-thank-you-very-oh.html
Every time I see the silly phrase ‘Know all men by these presents,’ I think of Christmas. Perhaps a statement the Magi wanted to make about their presents for the Christ child. Nevertheless, I’m no expert on drafting contracts: on that subject, I defer to Ken Adams, who riffs on the silly phrase in this post.
Can I get a witnesseth?
17 Saturday Jan 2015
Posted in Boilerplate Forms, Discovery, Editing, Interrogatories, Legal Writing, Legalese, Plain Language, Readability, Requests for Admissions, Requests for Production
≈ Comments Off on Federal Magistrate On Writing Discovery and Responses – “What We Have Here Is A Failure to Communicate.”
Tags
Discovery, Discovery Disputes, Discovery Responses, Legal Writing, Oklahoma Bar Journal, U.S. Magistrate Paul J. Cleary
| Some Thoughts on Discovery and Legal Writing, by Judge Paul J. Cleary, Oklahoma Bar Journal, 82 OBJ 33 (2011)
Since 2002, The Hon. Paul J. Cleary has served as U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of Oklahoma. He has the joy of overseeing discovery in civil litigation. You could say that experience makes him an expert. It should be no surprise that he urges counsel to use good writing habits and avoid boilerplate language. -CCE “What we have here is failure to communicate.” Cool Hand Luke (Jalem Productions 1967). |
There is a famous scene at the end of the movie Blow Up2 where mimes face off in a tennis match using an imaginary ball and racquets. It reminds me of too many discovery disputes: I sit as the linesman, watching helplessly as the lawyers roil and argue between intermittent swats at imaginary objects.
The fundamental problems that underlie most discovery disputes might be pulled from the pages of a marriage counselor’s handbook: Fear of commitment and inability to communicate. Lawyers won’t commit to a definition of the legal dispute: It’s not a simple breach of contract; it’s a contract, fraud, bad faith, conspiracy, racketeering case. The ill-defined nature of the dispute drives discovery into vast, uncharted territory. By the same token, lawyers responding to discovery requests won’t commit to a clear statement of what responsive documents exist and which of those will be produced. The purpose of this article is to examine the problem of inartful/incomprehensible discovery requests and responses and to offer some observations and, perhaps,some solutions. . . .
29 Monday Dec 2014
Posted in Boilerplate Forms, Contract Law, Legal Writing
≈ Comments Off on Bet You Can’t Guess Ken Adams’ Opinion of “Boilerplate” Contract Forms.
Tags
Adams on Contract Drafting, Boilerplate Forms, Clio, Contract Law, EDGAR, Ken Adams, Legal Writing, LegalZoom, Rocket Lawyer
The Sad Truth About Promiscuous Copying of Contract Language, by Ken Adams, Adams on Contract Drafting
I recently came across this blog post on Clio’s website. Clio is software that handles time and billing, calendaring, and collaboration, but this blog post is about something else—how law firms can use ‘commercial legal forms.’ It suggests three possible uses: You can copy them. You can resell them. Or you can create and sell your own. Here’s my take on the first of those suggestions.
The author says that if you’re looking to copy ‘boilerplate,’ you can get it from three sources:
- from your own files
- from ‘the same vast library of forms and templates that the public now enjoys,’ which ‘are often crafted by experienced lawyers’
- from forms sold by the likes of LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer, one advantage being that checking those forms would ‘take a fraction of the time that would have been spent of compiling a rough draft from scratch’
Regular readers will know that I find the latter two options depressing. Good luck relying on anything you find in, say, the great flea market that is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR system. As for relying on the LegalZooms and Rocket Lawyers of the world, go here for my critique of a LegalZoom contract and go here for my critique of a Rocket Lawyer contract.
The sad fact is that plucking contract language from the random mass and then checking it and revising it appropriately requires serious skill and is time-consuming, despite what the Clio author says. Given the cold realities of quality control, the something-for-nothing appeal of promiscuous copying of contract language is an illusion.
Copying contract language without that sort of scrutiny requires a leap of faith; if you’re putting your faith in some contract you found in a few minutes of rooting around online, you’re screwed before you even start.
Incidentally, given that Clio is now offering advice about where to copy from, I’ll now start writing about time-management software! Not really.
