4 ms·
Is there really a point to the long contracts other than billable hours? Upthread, I speculated on that being the reason why "contract ergonomics" is not widesp
by dqv 5y ago
Is there really a point to the long contracts other than billable hours? Upthread, I speculated on that being the reason why "contract ergonomics" is not widespread. A while ago on the Verizon website, I recall seeing a "plain English" annotation of their legalese and thinking why not just have the plain English part without the legalese? And why the hell is it so long?
That's the only purpose I can think of. Including every edge case in a contract just doesn't seem useful... there is going to be a dispute no matter what.
- rocqua 5y agoContracts can get longer if either party is very distrustful of the other. If you expect the contract to be contested it makes sense to lock things down. An other reason is avoiding precedent and certain judgements from applying to this contract. I think this is quite common with financial documents, to the point where there is a lot of boilerplate that everyone understands without reading (just checking it is actually there). Sadly, contracts with the public hit both cases. Lots of precedent, and so many people you can expect a few of them to try and misuse the agreement.
- jrm4 5y agoI'd say that's generally right, though a slightly more charitable way to think about it is that it partly an arms race as well as a CYA thing -- after all, if you don't rigorously protect your client to the best of your ability you run the risk of getting in trouble yourself; so the things just keep accreting in terms of "what is expected in a contract."