Once you’ve signed your deal, how easy is it to change? The unexpected has a nasty way of cropping up, so apart from instant one-off transactions, your contracts, agreements and T&C need to include a clear mechanism allowing the buyer and seller to tweak the details. But what if it
I love it when people send me copies of monstrous T&C to me… I’m very nosey. I love to see providers think are the most appropriate words to create loyal customers and good relationships. A particularly sticky example was sent to me by Lee Jackson (a speaker on ‘getting good’
The literal reading of a formula for rent increases was irrational, arbitrary or illogical. But what were the court’s powers to override an express clause in the lease? The purpose of the clause was to increase the rent each year by a cost of living rate (the retail price index).
Contract professionals, contract writers and lawyers are trained to build in ‘comfort blankets’ ie to make contracts cosy for their client or organisation. As a result contracts have become overly full of clauses which are little more than comfort blankets eg the miscellaneous or boilerplate terms. Since not many users
‘There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content’ – Fred Rodell (1936). Despite having nearly 100 years to improve, legal writing is still awful. Researchers in cognitive science from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) have analysed the major
‘The shared goals of lawyers and business are that contracts work legally and operationally‘ (Helena Haapio at World CC Summit 2023). Contracts should: make things happen prevent causes of unnecessary problems drive strategic business objectives and ESG goals. The purpose of contracts We need to make sure that contracts are
How many customers does your organisation lose before you even know it? You have no idea about the business you never heard from because they walked away [David Avrin] When does the customer experience start? It is often well before your first contact with them. The internet has profoundly changed
In 2023 there was a huge buzz about ChatGPT, a new type of generative AI tool. Other tools swiftly followed. Most of the contract professionals, contract writers and lawyers were testing its capability, including asking it to write contracts… but there were glitches in the outputs. Although many of those
A letter of intent is a specialised form of short form contract in the style of a letter. It is widely used in the UK construction sector to get a project started with the minimum of paperwork. Most letters of intent include a variety of elements: a request to provide
The process of getting a deal done should be simple – but somehow we often far more complex than it needs to be… through time pressures, through inconsistency, or through burying our heads! In a recent English court case (CLS Civil v WJG Evans), the buyer and the supplier tied
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