Today, I want to talk about geeky contract terms that people often ignore: Governing Law, Jurisdiction, and Venue. These terms usually appear in the boilerplate of a contract, and I group these three subjects together because they revolve around one similar concept: What are going...
Having spent several years in litigation practice, day in and day out all I dealt with were partners who were suing or being sued. I concluded that while litigation is an important part of the American legal system, it is also very wasteful. It is...
Once law students graduate and enter law practice, there are often multiple tracks to take in terms of career paths. In very general terms, there are three broad areas of legal practices: Litigation Practice, Transactional Practice, and Government/Policy Practice. Today we won’t look at policy...
Why are contracts so complicated? You know you hate the complicated contract. This is the first in a two-post exploration of some of the reasons why contracts have gotten so complicated. First, a quick caveat: contract language can be complicated if the deal itself is complicated....
For a while, I have been talking here and in other places, about the need for honesty in contract language, about using contract language that generates trust, and about respecting the other party to the contract. Along these lines is the issue of parity in...
One of the most common pieces of advice I give to clients regarding contracts is that it is better to have no contract at all than to have a contract that no one follows. If there is a dispute in a courtroom, it might be...
One aspect of dealing with creative and service-based industries, as I often do, is that many employers have a non-compete agreement for their employees. I understand the desire and sometimes the need for the agreement. But as a class of agreements, non-compete agreements are among...
One of the first classes that law students take when they begin law school is Contracts. It is a standard first-year course that provides the background and basics for the study of private law. The course is important to learn about how contracts are interpreted...
I just finished reviewing a contract, a combination non-compete, non-solicitation confidentiality, non-disclosure agreement for a client. This kind of agreement is typical in the software or technology industries. Like most of these contracts, this contract was vastly overwritten, almost obscenely so. While my advice to...