As you may know, I am a bit of a contract nerd and love to learn from those at the cutting edge of new ways of thinking about contracts and contracting.
At a Law Insider webinar, Electra Japonas, the co-founder of the crowd-sourced OneNDA, said that contracts are there to facilitate healthy relationships.
This view was echoed by others during ‘contract corner’ sessions at the World Commerce and Contracting Vibe Summit 2023. Elizabeth de Stadler talked about the role of a contract professional which is to help clients to form relationships and to define the rules of those relationships in a way that is clear and compelling to everybody, not just lawyers.
Better relationships
As a contracts expert, one of my key roles is to make sure my contracts enhance any existing trust, build balanced links between the parties, and help the parties to collaborate throughout the contracting process.
The contract helps create better relationships – my contracts are not designed to create distance between the parties to the deal. Anecdotally (from my clients), I know that simpler content helps businesses to build better relationships with their clients and suppliers.
Simpler language
Part of how we create better relationships is to remove obstacles to trust or collaboration – such as ‘traditional legal language’, jargon or constraints. Much contract language has developed over decades and is based on a risk-averse lawyer’s mindset, one which focuses on trying to avoid bad things happening to clients or projects.
However, by fixating on the negatives, we have inadvertently created complex, one-sided and adversarial contracts. This style contract can break trust, damage relationships and create a blame culture.
What should you do?
Contracts are not about the law – they’re really about building and recording relationships between a client and their suppliers. Ask and demand that your contracts are clear and compelling, acting as glue to bring you together.
If they don’t, your terms are losing you sales and clients.