Cave verba magicae
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The JC’s guide to pithy Latin adages
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This article comes to you from the Jolly Contrarian’s legal maxim generation service.
Latin maxim loosely translated as: “Beware of magic words”.
There are two senses. One is an admonition to prudent action: A legal contract is only as good as how the parties behave. If you stick it in a draw and ignore it, when it comes to the crunch it might not do what you want it to.
The other is a recognition that, except in a few limited circumstances, most of the words in a legal contract aren’t magic incantations, and the best thing you can do is make them as clear and idiomatic as possible.