A Manual of Style For the Drafting of Contracts

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A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting is such a beautifully ironic title — rather like writing How to be Cool in Comic Sans — that we can’t resist wondering how much more clumsy its title might have been had Ken Adams had the chutzpah — or the basic sense of irony that he seems to lack — to really push the boat out. A Manual of Style, Concision and/or Brevity in the Drafting of Contracts and Non-Contractual Obligations Arising Out Of or in Connection Therewith might have been fun, for example. I guess there’s always the next edition.

We can tease, but Mr. Adams ploughs a lonely furrow, single-handedly taking the fight for elegant drafting to his countrymen and women. As he goes, he is by necessity surrounded by attorneys whose favourite language game is complicating simple ideas.

So, we are grateful to Mr. Adams, and full-bloodedly raise our glass in salute to him — it is no small matter to dedicate 27 pages to why one should write “states” rather than “represents and warrants” in a contract and, even then, not entirely make out your case — but it’s a sound ice-breaker should you be stuck next to someone dull at the ABA’s annual contract draftsperson’s gala dinner, as has happened to the JC before.

See also

• Representations and warranties
• That dreadful FT book about derivatives (not written by Mr. Adams, but somehow comparable in tone, price, heft at utility.)