I’m in Continuing Legal Education today: “Secrets to Bulletproof Contract Drafting with Lenne Espenscheid.” One of the best CLEs I’ve attended. The themes: (a) plain language is best; (b) don’t use legalese — it’s “buggy;” and (c) the main goal is to eliminate ambiguity. A big problem: law students don’t learn to draft contracts in school — they just discuss them, or argue in mock litigation. Law students learn about contracts by studying consensus breakdown, not by learning how to craft a working document.
As I learn to code, I see more similarities between good contract drafting and coding language. Boolean logic rules, syntax is key and don’t try to reinvent the wheel without studying working models of that wheel. When lawyers write ambiguous code, their clients end up in court. Here’s Lenne’s Top 10 Emerging Trends in Contract Drafting.