When writing your contract, you may be tempted to see it as a form of safety-net. Rights and remedies… This means your contract will inevitably focus on what will happen when things go wrong. Is this really a good start to a client relationship? How do you think it makes
Do you have a ‘haphazard’ or ‘cavalier’ approach to the terms of your contracts? Back in 2011, the OFT found evidence that contract users did not “properly assess the transaction or deal they enter into.” It is not a luxury to make sure your contract helps you do business, and
A good speech is like a skirt – it should be short enough to be interesting and long enough to cover the essentials… Churchill The same is true of a good contract. Short enough to be read. Long enough to cover the essentials. In the construction industry, we have (2018)
Contracts are tools to help you do business, and in that sense, you (rather than a lawyer) might be the perfect person to write your own contract. This might seem counter-intuitive coming from a contract specialist, who helps companies to write their own contracts. When I work with clients, I
There is no point deciding to write a contract until you have decided it’s purpose. What is your contract meant to do? Here are some suggestions: Create trust You may decide that your contract should create or enhance trust between you and your contract partner. Your contract acts as a
“To be clear is to be efficient; to be obscure is to be inefficient. Your style . . . is to be judged not by literary conventions or grammatical niceties but by whether it carries out efficiently the job you are paid to do.” As the author of the 500
Many people choose a construction contract not for its cost, nor for its fine words, but for their familiarity with the terms and conditions. Although one of the shorter standard forms, what if we could condense NEC… what should it say? No précis of NEC3 could omit its principal feature:
There isn’t one way to draft a contract or legal document, whatever you may have been told. These tips will help you create a better contract. Any Format In England/Wales, there is no specific format or style or content for most contracts. It doesn’t even have to be written down.
One of the wonders of English is the rich nuances our language permits. That richness, combined with modern usage – whether legal or otherwise – also creates confusion. A major issue for drafters and interpreters of legal documents is the use and abuse of mandatory and permissive verbs. Mandatory verbs
Contract strategy is just a fancy way of saying choosing the type of contract you want. There are various issues to take into account: your procurement strategy: traditional, design and build, prime cost, management contracting your payment strategy: lump sum, remeasurement, target price your risk strategy: pro-active or reactive; transfer,