24 Aug “Herein” Is a Very Costly Word
One of the things I hate most about contracts is legalese. I have few other videos about legalese which you can see here, here, and here. But one of the categories of legalese is the words like “herein” and similar words that no one uses outside of contracts. Usually, this kind of language doesn’t take center stage in a lawsuit. Well, it did in a recent case out of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (opinion in pdf form). The dispute boiled down to whether “herein” referred to a section of the contract or the whole contract. This case probably cost the parties several hundred thousand dollar legal fees. Here are my thoughts.
If you want to read another case about poor imagination and bad contract drafting, check out this post.