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Of
the many different forms of bad prose, corporate agreements are among
the worst.
‘‘Splendid,’’
I hear you groan, ‘‘more high-handed professorial advice that I can safely
ignore.’’
But
the language of contracts, filled as it is with archaisms, redundancies,
and freakish solecisms, has real-world consequences. All too often, after
signing a contract, a party finds that because of a drafting flaw, such
as an ambiguous defined term, a given provision may not mean what the
party had thought it meant. This could defeat an anticipated benefit under
the contract or result in a dispute leading to litigation; countless lawsuits
have their origin in awkward drafting. Of more immediate significance,
however, is the fact that contracts take longer than they should to draft
and negotiate, and so cost more—often much more.
Authors
of mediocre prose can be under the pronounced illusion that they are entirely
competent, even rather gifted. This is often the case with corporate lawyers:
they tend to be complacent about their own drafting abilities and are
quick to dismiss questions of legal usage as going to form rather than
substance. One consequence is that junior corporate lawyers often receive
little training in the principles of drafting, rely on flawed form contracts,
and unwittingly perpetuate poor drafting techniques.
If
there is going to be any transition to more modern and efficient contract
language, it will probably have to be accomplished by junior lawyers,
who are not set in their drafting ways. But how to disrupt the endless
recycling of deficient drafting? As an alternative to my sometimes dense
book on the subject, Legal Usage in Drafting Corporate Agreements,
I offer here, as a short-sharp-shock introduction, a few of the rules
that junior associates should know if they want to be anything other than
hack drafters.
Enough
With the Redundant Synonyms, Already
Rather
than select the best word for a given provision, many lawyers instead
offer two, three, or more synonyms or near synonyms, presumably with the
idea that if you use a blunderbuss, you’ll have a greater chance of hitting
the target. For instance, it would be unexceptional for a drafter to provide
that Smith shall purchase from Jones, and Jones shall sell, assign,
convey, transfer, and deliver to Smith, the Shares on the Closing Date.
Just as purchase is adequate to reflect the transaction from Smith’s
perspective, Jones can simply sell the Shares. Convey, assign,
and transfer reflect concepts that are implicit in a sale, while
any concerns Jones might have about delivery would be best addressed by
listing in a separate section what needs to be delivered at closing.
The
problem with redundant synonyms is not only that they render prose pompous
and less readable. Since every word is supposed to be given meaning, clever
litigators can convince a court to accord to the individual elements of
a synonym-string a meaning that the drafter did not intend.
Sometimes
a synonym-string is necessary to cover the universe of possibilities.
For instance, if my client were buying shares, I would require the other
party to represent not simply that the shares are free of any lien,
but that they’re free of any lien, claim, community property interest,
equitable interest, option, pledge, security interest, right of first
refusal, or restriction of any kind, or some similar formulation.
I would do so because I’m unsure how broad a meaning courts would accord
‘‘lien.’’ (That said, I acknowledge that this list no doubt includes some
redundancy.) To avoid making life difficult for the reader, I would create
and use the defined term Lien if I needed to use this synonym-string
a number of times in a given contract.
In
sum, if the model contracts you are using suggest that you should be using
a synonym-string, consider whether each of the terms conveys a meaning
that is both sufficiently apt and sufficiently distinct from any accompanying
terms that you would be justified in keeping it. Very often, it will not.
Eliminate
the Traditional
Recital of Consideration
Generally,
the lead-in of a contract will contain a ‘‘recital of consideration.’’
The traditional recital of consideration seeks to establish that the promises
made by the parties are supported by consideration. It can take many forms,
but here’s a relatively full-blown example: NOW, THEREFORE, in consideration
of the premises and the mutual covenants set forth herein and for other
good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which
are hereby acknowledged, the parties hereto covenant and agree as follows.
Recitals
of consideration are, however, just so much blather, since they are ineffective.
For one thing, a recital cannot transform into valid consideration something
that cannot be consideration; a contract containing a recital of consideration
will be unenforceable if a party can show that its promise was, for example,
gratuitous or based on past consideration. Similarly, a false recital
of consideration cannot create consideration where there was none; a recital
stating that Roe’s promise is in consideration for performance, or promised
performance, by Acme would not render that contract enforceable if Roe
can show that there was in fact no such bargain. (There is limited authority
to the effect that recitals of consideration are effective in the context
of option contracts and guaranties, but it is not convincing.)
Recitals
can shed light on the parties’ intent, so courts give some weight to recitals
of consideration when determining whether a promise is supported by consideration.
That does not, however, constitute an argument for retaining the standard
recital of consideration: since the parties to a contract, and their lawyers,
invariably give no thought to the standard recital of consideration, a
court should disregard it when determining whether a promise was supported
by consideration. Instead of relying on a traditional recital of consideration,
you should craft recitals so as to ensure that they contain much more
meanóngful information about the background to the transaction. Generally,
providing this sort of information would simply help orient the reader,
but on rare occasions it could help establish that that the contract is
supported by consideration.
Stripping
from the lead-in the traditional recital of consideration makes the lead-in
much more readable. Once you eliminate the remaining archaisms and redundancies,
you are left with my preferred form of lead-in: The parties therefore
agree as follows.
Go
Easy on Your Readers’ Eyes
Inefficient
typography is one way to make unreadable an otherwise decent contract.
Here are some suggestions for keeping your contracts as readable as possible:
• use
single-spaced lines of text
• instead
of full justification, use left justification (ragged right margin)
• use
a serif typeface such as Times New Roman, and abjure any Courier typeface
• use
all-capitals sparingly (for instance, for the title, for article headings,
and for the names of the parties in the introductory clause and the signature
blocks)
• to
emphasize text elsewhere (for example, section headings, defined terms
when they are first defined, and references to exhibits and schedules),
use underlining; for conract drafting, I find boldface too emphatic and
italics too subtle
• to
render conspicuous an entire provision (such as an implied warranty of
merchantability), use some alternative to all-capitals (for example, bold
italics), if you can do so and still comply with state law ©
‘‘Plain
Language’’ is a regular feature of the Michigan Bar Journal, edited
by Joseph Kimble for the Bar Journal Advisory Board’s Plain English Committee.
The assistant editor is George Hathaway. The committee seeks to improve
the clarity of legal writing and the public opinion of lawyers by eliminating
legalese. Want to contribute a plain English article? Contact Prof. Kimble
at Thomas Cooley Law School, P.O. Box 13038, Lansing, MI 48901. For information
about the Plain English Committee, see our website—http://www.michbar.org/generalinfo/plainenglish/home.cfm
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