My talk at the 2017 CoMIT Conference drew parallels between banking and construction because banking was based on trust (hence the term ‘rich as Croesus’ as he mastered the art of trustworthy coins as tools to stimulate commerce in Lydia). The former chair of JCT said we cannot move to
Although 86% of the audience at the 2017 CoMIT Conference did not think language was the biggest barrier to digital contracts, we cannot automate our current contracts. The problems include: Jargon: the legal language is one-sided and full of jargon so the obligations are not universally understood within our industry,
At the 2017 CoMIT conference, I proposed that the three barriers to moving towards digital contracts were technology, language and conduct. Unsurprisingly for an audience attending a conference on the construction opportunities for mobile IT, 75% said technology would be the first barrier to digital contracts that we successfully remove
The Winfield Rock Report Overcoming the Legal and Contractual Barriers of BIM [available here] is a great step-forward in explaining both the essentials of BIM and the barriers to its adoption. As a contract and plain language specialist, the Report chimes with my experience: too much jargon too many initialisms
Beyond considering the role of contract visualization, Stefania Passera’s doctoral dissertation Beyond the wall of contract text (2017) she also looks at the functions of contract. Her conclusions are critical for contract creators like me who believe that the purpose of a contract is not merely to safeguard rights and
EQ is a measure of a person’s emotional intelligence. How many contracts make any reference to the need for a good standard of EQ? None? Interestingly some of the key skills for emotional intelligence in business, as mentioned in Dr Lynda Shaw’s book ‘Your Brain is Boss‘ are directly relevant
A smart contract means a ‘computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract.’ [source] From this definition, a smart contract is just the code – it has been said that it is neither smart nor a contract! More recently, the Law Commission