A few years ago, we took our kids to Paris and promised them a trip up the Eiffel Tower. Our timing could not have been worse… it was mother’s day and the Tower was rammed. As the queues for the lifts were extensive, and we’d have ended waiting for hours,
The owners of a new luxury hotel refused to pay their interior design consultant’s bill, alleging defective goods (which she sourced and supplied); but what was the deal and were they right? The first question for the court is always: was there a contract and if so, on what terms?
Have you ever accidentally bought something online, or forgotten to cancel an automatic renewal, or found yourself stuck with goods you simply don’t want? Making a contract is so easy we can almost do it in our sleep! But are you making it easy for your clients and suppliers? I
The purpose of your contracts is to help you do business. Another way of thinking of this based on success – as Jacqueline Horani said at the World Commerce and Contracting Vibe Summit 2023, contracts are tools to help ‘both sides of the agreement to achieve and fulfil their goals.’
I love the island of Guernsey… but when I first visited I saw notices everywhere telling you what you can and cannot do – don’t sit on a wall in case you fall off, don’t throw stones on the beach, don’t park here, don’t walk along the seawall when there
Although it is a book primarily about building a business, Rework (by Fried and Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of 37 Signals), has some tips which are equally applicable to doing deals. Focus on diving in When starting a business relationship, they say: Your priorities are out of whack if you’re thinking about getting
When I first started as a construction lawyer, my boss (Alison) was attempting to introduce two types of model documents for construction projects – the Rolls Royce (the best version) and the Morris Minor (a stripped back version). Perhaps not great names, but the idea was that a simpler document
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
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
The process for creating contracts is dysfunctional so the language for creating contracts is dysfunctional… [Ken Adams] When time is tight, the only realistic way to record the legal content of the deal is to copy and paste from a similar deal. But does this really work for the buyer