“Legalese Schmegalese.” I first started reviewing contracts back in my days working with TIC Wyoming, Inc., a subsidiary of the Kiewitt Corporation, reviewing large scale heavy industrial construction contracts for construction jobs such as oil refineries, natural gas compressor stations, and coal mine facilities.
I’ll be honest with you: my first impression of all the boilerplate legalese at the end of a contract was that it was totally unnecessary. I had the impression that these provisions were not ‘essential deal terms,’ and were drafted by some uptight committee of scholars. This attitude is not uncommon amongst transactional attorneys – they are often concerned with ‘getting the deal done’ and making sure the ‘deal works.’
Since then, however, I have developed a different attitude. While the essence of the deal may be encapsulated in the other provisions of the document, subsequent dispute negotiations, arbitration, mediation, and litigation almost always involves the boilerplate language in one way or another. Read More »
