While every contract has unique characteristics specific to the commercial transaction, there are certain features that lend themselves to standardization. Indeed, most contracts have been assembled by business and legal teams with a ton of “cutting and pasting” from various contract templates; however, with a lack of systemic control.  This can create what is known as content customization, worse yet and a ‘legal exception’ given the amount of complexity and risk a simple word change can generate. That is, content changes in the document assembly process can trigger a significant change in the intent or context and not be caught by the ‘naked eye’ in such process. So, if your company is a behemoth, or the proverbial “800 pound gorilla”, then maybe you can get away with just locking down your assembly process so no internal changes can be made.  And even not allow for editing or negotiation with your counterparty.

Modern legal language and the future of legal drafting

A push towards Plain English language and a push back?

Read Parts 1 and 3 of this aricle series here:

Part 1 - http://blog.contractroom.com/a-short-history-of-legal-drafting-part-1 and

Part 3 - http://blog.contractroom.com/innovative-approaches-to-standardizing-contracts