4 ms·
Have you developed a standardised format for expressing a legal contract as plain text (including clause numbers, definitions, etc)? The example I see on your D
by NoboruWataya 5y ago
Have you developed a standardised format for expressing a legal contract as plain text (including clause numbers, definitions, etc)? The example I see on your Docs page doesn't include any clause numbering, and says:
> It's a plain text file so there is no formatting. You can add extra spaces or tabs if you would like and they will appear in the final contract.
So I guess it's up to each drafting lawyer to come up with their own formatting conventions. I think that is potentially a recipe for disaster, unless the intention is that the plain text contract will only ever be edited by way of an interface that enforces standardised formatting conventions (which seems like it defeats the purpose).
Don't get me wrong, the current process of lawyers marking up each other's Word documents is a pain, but at least with Word when you go to enter a new clause it will by default have the same formatting and styling as all the other clauses. Maybe I'm missing the use case though.
Also, just to mention, version control and e-signatures are already available to transactional lawyers, though the solutions are imperfect and I guess they aren't available to everyone (I presume the software is expensive).
I don't mean to be critical or unduly sceptical by the way. I personally would love a move to simple, text-based processes for drafting and negotiating documents. But my own experience tells me that non-technically-inclined lawyers and clients would be slow to adopt a solution like this.
- hkhanna 5y agoThanks for the feedback. I agree there's a lot that remains to be done on formatting, etc. This is, after all, just an MVP. One of the directions I may take this is to allow those things you mention like clause numbers and definitions to be specified, perhaps by some markdown flavor. As you can see, we already enforce one formatting convention: the signature block. As this is developed, we may enforce other conventions. The Manual of Style of Contract Drafting (4th Ed.) [0] would generally serve as inspiration for me to the extent we enforce any formatting conventions. [0] https://www.adamsdrafting.com/writing/mscd/ https://www.adamsdrafting.com/writing/mscd/
- dylan604 5y agowhat a fine line that would be to walk. to add all of these formatting abilities, you move further and further away from plain text. at some point, you've recreated the same issues as Word.
- nvrspyx 5y agoYou can look into YAML frontmatter for the things like clause numbers and definitions if you go the markdown path.
- phphphphp 5y agoI'd suggest you prioritise defining a format earlier rather than later. The format / standard can evolve over time to accommodate the evolution of your product (that backwards-compatible evolution can be defined as part of the first version) but to go from no standard to any standard is much more difficult once people are already using the platform: you'll either break established workflows, or burden yourself with a lifetime of supporting unbounded backwards compatibility (because every client will, by virtue of writing integration code, unintentionally define their own standard).