In a previous blog post (here), I offer thoughts on a law review article, Tara Chowdhury, Faith Chudkowski & Mitu Gulati, The Form Knows Best, 79 U. of Miami L. Rev. 607 (2025). The same issue of that law review
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For Readers in Asia: For Contract Drafting, AI Is No Substitute for Knowledge (Plus News of Presentations in Asia)
One of my corporate partners, Thomson Reuters Asia, is contemplating something old-fashioned—having me do Drafting Clearer Contracts presentations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, Manila, and Mumbai (details below). Yes—really. I offer Drafting Clearer Contracts training online, but in-person presentations…
It’s Never Good to Use “Shall Be” in an Autonomous Definition
In a LinkedIn post, I challenged readers to find for me a contract that used shall be or will be in creating an autonomous definition. I wasn’t surprised that I was the only entrant in that thrilling competition. I submitted…
On-Demand “Drafting Clearer Contracts” Training: Sign Up for News!
My notion of offering an on-demand module of my Drafting Clearer Contracts training is slowly shifting from a gleam in my eye to reality. Videos and Quizzes This module will consist of 200+ short videos, some proportion of them accompanied…
The Form Is Copy-and-Pasted, and So Is Everything Else: Thoughts Prompted by Chowdhury, Chudkowski & Gulati
Recently I encountered this law review article: Tara Chowdhury, Faith Chudkowski & Mitu Gulati, The Form Knows Best, 79 U. of Miami L. Rev. 607 (2025). In this post, I explain two quibbles. I also suggest that the reality the…
A Note from a Grateful Reader, and My Reply
The image below contains the text of an email message I received from a law student yesterday. In case it’s of interest, here’s how I responded: Hi [Name]. Fortunate is the author who gets this sort of message from a…
Eliminating Mistakes and Ambiguity from Contracts: Some Thoughts on a Recent Glenn West Article
Glenn West has been pumping out articles so fast that I haven’t kept up. I’ve started looking at the backlog; if I have anything to add, I’ll do so. That’s what I’m doing now, because this post was inspired by…
The Legalistic Mind Can Rationalize Anything
If a contract usage has been around long enough and appears in enough contracts, you’ll find people to defend it, no matter how archaic or otherwise nonsensical it is. A case in point: yesterday Ryan McCarl did this LinkedIn post…
A New Variant of Ambiguity of the Part Versus the Whole
Thanks to longtime tipster Steven Sholk, I learned of the recent opinion of the First Circuit in Dahua Technology USA, Inc. v. Feng Zhang (here). The language at issue is in the image at the top of this post, but…
Using Only Words to State Numbers?
Over the years, I’ve written plenty about the practice of expressing numbers using both words and digits, as in five (5) days’ notice. In MSCD, I recommend using words for one through ten and digits for 11 and up (with…