Tip #6: Review the Overall Structure When we’re drafting agreements, sometimes in our edits and modifications, things become disorganized. Payment terms are with deliverables. Insurance requirements are all over the place. We’re breaking into 5 exhibits when it would be more logical to do it in 3. There are a lot of things that we…
About a month ago, the U.S. Supreme Court made a mistake that has happened to soo many attorneys, just not as publicly. Specifically…..they forgot to remove all the metadata before they published. In the metadata, there were hidden comments, and redlines, and regardless of whether you think the opinion issued was good or not, that…
Tip #5: Spot Undefined Capitalized Terms In legal contracts, you only capitalize a term when it’s supposed to mean something special. You write a bunch of words to describe what this word means. You put it in quotes. You do all these things to make sure that a word means a special thing. And then,…
Tip #4: Broken Cross-References This is the bane of my existence when working on large documents. When you are working on documents, especially large documents, you often reference other sections and clauses. How often is the numbering changed in a document while drafting and negotiating? Almost all the time. When you reference the wrong section,…
Tip #3: Correct Miscapitalized Defined Terms Often when we define a term, it isn’t uncommon for it to be a relatively common term. How many times have we defined the word “Agreement” or “Party”? However, sometimes those common terms are meant to be just that, the common usage. Miscapitalized defined terms can slip through the…
Tip #2: Clean Up Unused Defined Terms As lawyers, we use defined terms to refer to an idea, an object, a party, or something that has been uses to many words to continue to write out the whole phrase at a later time. In short, it’s a lawyer’s short hand. If you were a programmer,…
Tip #1: Only Define Terms Once Defining terms multiple times in a document can lead to confusion and significant problems in legal documents. Which definition applies in which instance? Inconsistent definitions may result in disputes over interpretation, putting your agreements at risk. One common error is with an MSA and SOW, and maybe you have…
It’s with a lot of thanks and gratitude to the team at DraftCheck that I announce a new version. 2.5.0 for DraftCheck (www.draftcheck.io) is rolling out now.
Every morning when I wake up with my kids, we usually do the normal putz around stuff. I watch them walk around like zombies, they try to eat something before they head off to school, and then the inevitable happens. We run around right as we’re about to leave frantically looking for whatever it is…
There are so many reasons I created DraftCheck.io. As an individual that has often run my own law firm, and started out as a solo, I always wanted that 2nd set of eyes to proofread and find the little errors that I was sure were there. Legal documents are long, dense, and full of very…