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(Former law student here...) Definitely agree with your approach to drafting, but I think you could be overreacting a bit here. Even the shortest contracts mig

by hnfong 3y ago

(Former law student here...) Definitely agree with your approach to drafting, but I think you could be overreacting a bit here. Even the shortest contracts might seem like a "wall of text" to the lay person, and short paragraphs stringed together is a wall of text. At any rate the preferred format in most legal contexts is still "`wall' of text" (whether big or small wall, as opposed to diagrams, spreadsheets, or conversations), which is what I think was the original point.

dctoedt 3y ago
> short paragraphs stringed together is a wall of text. "White space is your friend" is another rule I preach to my students. Some 40 years of dealing with contracts has persuaded me that short paragraphs with white space in between them are FAR easier to review and negotiate — which means they get signed sooner, and clients vastly prefer that. > as opposed to diagrams, spreadsheets, or conversations For several years there have been people banging the drum for contracts to include more icons, flow charts, etc., for improved readability. So far, that idea hasn't gotten a lot of traction — IMHO that's because most lawyers barely even know how to use Microsoft Word competently and would have no idea how to create a flow chart or meaningful icon, so they default to writing pure text (which is also the quickest and thus cheapest path to getting a draft onto someone else's desk). About the best I've been able to come up with in this regard, as something that can be done with Word, is to create tables of, e.g., action items, with columns such as "Event | Action | Who | When" — basically, an Intel-style "AR list" [0], or in software, a CASE statement. [0] http://www.nathanzeldes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Effective-Action-Culture.pdf http://www.nathanzeldes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Effec...

by hnfong 3y ago

dctoedt 3y ago

> short paragraphs stringed together is a wall of text. "White space is your friend" is another rule I preach to my students. Some 40 years of dealing with contracts has persuaded me that short paragraphs with white space in between them are FAR easier to review and negotiate — which means they get signed sooner, and clients vastly prefer that. > as opposed to diagrams, spreadsheets, or conversations For several years there have been people banging the drum for contracts to include more icons, flow charts, etc., for improved readability. So far, that idea hasn't gotten a lot of traction — IMHO that's because most lawyers barely even know how to use Microsoft Word competently and would have no idea how to create a flow chart or meaningful icon, so they default to writing pure text (which is also the quickest and thus cheapest path to getting a draft onto someone else's desk). About the best I've been able to come up with in this regard, as something that can be done with Word, is to create tables of, e.g., action items, with columns such as "Event | Action | Who | When" — basically, an Intel-style "AR list" [0], or in software, a CASE statement. [0] http://www.nathanzeldes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Effective-Action-Culture.pdf http://www.nathanzeldes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Effec...