According to this Thomson Reuter’s Blog Legalese is “a colloquial term describing the body of formal and technical legal language that is difficult or impossible for laypeople to understand.” It is ridiculously common but can you avoid it when writing your contract? No-one needs legalese In this introduction to a
This blog was prompted by a tweet from plain language specialist Cheryl Stephens. She was reviewing a UK Act of Parliament or law. ‘Cease to have effect on’ Many Acts of Parliament use a particular phrase to state when an Act, right or permission ends. This extract comes from The
As a supplier on a construction project, English law allows you to use The Civil Liability (Contribution) Act 1978 to pass on some of the losses claimed against you. You can ask for a contribution from any other contractor, supplier or consultant who is responsible for the same damage [see
When you’ve just set up your business, you don’t often have the money to spend on the ‘luxury’ of a lawyer to write your contract for you. However, what you really shouldn’t do is blindly copy terms off friends, clients, suppliers, the internet or from the back of a holiday
I was asked to sign a framework agreement recently [read more] that said it did not create mutual obligations. I refused as that clause showed a fundamental misunderstanding of what a contract does. This was not the first time I had seen this type of clause … Mutual obligations A
If we can tell stories in our business marketing then we can tell stories with our contract terms… The show will (probably) go on Strictly Come Dancing (a BBC TV show) includes a public vote and it’s T&C have improved from their original lengthy version. I think they could tell
As Ken Adams says in his blog on the Nexus Between Contracts and the Law, contracts cannot exist without the courts to interpret, intervene and implement their terms, including by: Deciding whether individual terms in the contract are fair; Deciding whether your contract meets the formalities required; Deciding whether your
In 2013 the University of Salford hosted an event (organised by the Constructing Excellence Manchester Best Practice Club) at which over 100 people heards about the Pitfalls of NEC3. What struck me was that many of the knotty problems associated with NEC3 apply to any form contract. What you should
Your knowledge of the law is irrelevant to your liability. Given that you have to comply (whatever your contract or conscience says), why do most contracts require the parties to comply with statutory requirements? Clarity Although ‘ignorance is no defence’, contracts are tools to help the parties to understand their
The first stage for reviewing a contract is to read it. Best practice, as set out in Which Contract? suggests that you ‘study its contents and understand its implications’. Some of you do not read your contracts: you let them gather dust. If you don’t read your contract, it goes
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