(If any)

Towards more picturesque speech™ →Go uptown Your legal eagle in the midst of a swept-back wing knee-slide, yesterday. SEC guidance on plain EnglishIndex: Click ᐅ to expand: Plain English Drafting Metaphor Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

A two-word motif that, as much as any other, belies an attorney’s deep existential fear of his own language. It speaks of a nervousness that, should a dependent clause bite on something that isn’t there, somehow the whole linguistic edifice will come crashing down; en edifice that can yet miraculously be affixed to the firmament with this single wipe of the attorney’s flannel.

“[blah blah blah] ...either alone or together with the amount, if any, referred to in clause (2) below... [blah blah blah ad infinitum]”

See how it stymies your sentence’s natural flow? That may graunch your gears, but to your happy counsel it is pointilliste: a percussive refrain; a syncopated rim-shot in the great jungle beat of the law.

In your face

If any, like “or any part thereof”, is a neat exclamation point if you want to get the last word in a round of “who’s the most anal lawyer” in the negotiation. Appending that, sole, comment to a sheaf in 5.5pt font and faxing it back an hour before the deal is due to close entitles one to a swept-back wing knee-slide. But, really, that is a cheap thrill — inserting late-breaking trifles is shooting fish in a barrel. It brings no inner peace.

No; true ninja legal eagle points only accrue to the curmudgeonly sod on the other side — the JC likes to think it would be someone like him — who, with poker face and jaw set coolly against the ticking clock regards your facile markup and, as the sand drains from the hourglass rails against the tyrannous anal paradox and strikes that piffling amendment, citing the sacred interest of elegant prose, saying this will not do.

ISDA’s crack drafting squad™ show you how to do it

Rejoice in this recently-minted example of an “if any” infestation from those excellent folk in the elite derivative forces of ISDA’s crack drafting squad™:

1(b) Scope of this Annex and the Other CSA: The only Transactions which will be relevant for the purposes of determining “Exposure” under this Annex will be the Covered Transactions specified in Paragraph 11. Each Other CSA, if any, is hereby amended such that the Transactions that will be relevant for purposes of determining “Exposure” thereunder, if any, will exclude the Covered Transactions and the Transaction constituted by this Annex. Except as provided in Paragraph 9(h), nothing in this Annex will affect the rights and obligations, if any, of either party with respect to “independent amounts” or initial margin under each Other CSA, if any, with respect to Transactions that are Covered Transactions.

See also

• Anal paradox
• Or any part thereof
• Entire agreement
• Counterparts