Boilerplate: Difference between revisions

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{{a|boilerplate|[[File:Boilerplate.jpg|450px|thumb|center|An [[entire agreement]] clause yesterday]]
{{rightbox|'''Boilerplate Anatomy'''<br>{{image|Boilerplate|jpg|An [[entire agreement]] clause yesterday}}{{Anatnavigation-boilerplate}}}}{{quote|
}}A work-creation scheme for our learned friends.
Since brevity is the soul of wit, <br>
And boilerplate the crutch of wretched [[tedium]] <br>
I will be brief, where Triago, in all his trite facility, cannot. <br>
:—{{buchstein}}, {{dsh}}}}{{d|Boilerplate|/ˈbɔɪləpleɪt/|n|}}
 
A work-creation scheme for our learned friends.
 
{{boilerplate capsule}}


===Boilerplate and the cocktail napkin===
===Boilerplate and the cocktail napkin===
At the JC we define “legal [[boilerplate]]” expansively, and that is to say “anything that didn’t make it onto the [[cocktail napkin]]”. Those terms, thrashed out over Martinis and peanuts in some ill-lit bar in a skanky part of town at three in the morning, the commandments on the stone tablet that Moses fished out of a burning bush in the Red Sea<ref>Choose your own [[metaphor]], okay?</ref> — ''that’s the deal'', and we [[legal eagle]]s have little to say about it, assuming it doesn’t actually break the law.<ref>In the case of the ten commandments, it ''is'' the law. We’ll just fill a couple of testaments and countless apocrypha amplifying and interpreting it, is all. So: ten commandments: the deal. The Bible, the Torah, the apocrypha and a couple of thousand years of Judeo-Christian intellectual hereitage: ''[[boilerplate]]''. P.S. yes, I know the commandments didn’t come from a burning bush in the Red Sea.</ref>
I define “legal [[boilerplate]]” expansively, and that is to say “anything that didn’t make it onto the [[cocktail napkin]]”. Those terms, thrashed out over Martinis and peanuts in some ill-lit bar in a skanky part of town at three in the morning, the commandments on the stone tablet that Moses fished out of a burning bush in the Red Sea<ref>Choose your own [[metaphor]], okay?</ref> — ''that’s the deal'', and we [[legal eagle]]s have little to say about it, assuming it doesn’t actually break the law.<ref>In the case of the ten commandments, it ''is'' the law. We’ll just fill a couple of testaments and countless apocrypha amplifying and interpreting it, is all. So: ten commandments: the deal. The Bible, the Torah, the apocrypha and a couple of thousand years of Judeo-Christian intellectual hereitage: ''[[boilerplate]]''. P.S. yes, I know the commandments didn’t come from a burning bush in the Red Sea.</ref>


The remainder, be it the classic boilerplate that fills our anatomy, or the “legally vital protections for our client” — the [[events of default]], the [[termination events]], the [[close-out netting]] provisions, the [[indemnities]], the [[security waterfall]]s — it is ''all'', in this wider sense, boilerplate: it is there simply ''[[For the avoidance of doubt|to avoid doubt]]''.
The remainder, be it the classic boilerplate that fills our anatomy, or the “legally vital protections for our client” — the [[events of default]], the [[termination events]], the [[close-out netting]] provisions, the [[indemnities]], the [[security waterfall]]s — it is ''all'', in this wider sense, boilerplate: it is there simply ''[[For the avoidance of doubt|to avoid doubt]]''.


===Boilerplate ''within'' the boilerplate===
===Boilerplate ''within'' the boilerplate===
There are degrees of boilerplate. [[Legal eagles]] will get het up about [[indemnities]], [[Events of default|default events]] and [[close out]] rights, and swear blind that these ''aren’t'' just boilerplate. (They are.) To be sure, they excite animal passions — at least, amongst [[credit officer]]s and [[lawyer]]s — in a way that [[representations and warranties]], [[covenant]]s, notices, [[governing law]], [[counterparts]], [[entire agreement]], [[amendments]], [[process agent]] appointments, [[Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999]] exclusions and so forth really don’t.  
There are degrees of boilerplate. [[Legal eagles]] will get het up about [[indemnities]], [[Events of default|default events]] and [[close out]] rights, and swear blind that these ''aren’t'' just boilerplate. (They are.) To be sure, they excite animal passions — at least, amongst [[credit officer]]s and [[lawyer]]s — in a way that [[representations and warranties]], [[covenant]]s, notices, [[governing law]], [[counterparts]], [[entire agreement]], [[amendment]]s, [[process agent]] appointments, [[Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999]] exclusions and so forth really don’t.  


===The buried risk of boilerplate===
===The buried risk of boilerplate===
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You may call this a jaundiced view, but really, if boilerplate is designed only to reinforce the settled position of the common law, what really does it do other than adding heft?  
You may call this a jaundiced view, but really, if boilerplate is designed only to reinforce the settled position of the common law, what really does it do other than adding heft?  


==Boilerplate Anatomy==
===Business at the front===
*[[Recital]]s and [[preamble]]
*[[Interpretation]] and [[construction]]
*[[Definitions]]
*[[Scope]]
===Party at the back===
*[[Representations and warranties]] and [[covenants]]
*[[Notices]] and [[communications]]
*[[Governing law]] and [[jurisdiction]]
*[[Miscellaneous]]
{{sa}}
{{sa}}
*[[OneNDA]] — kind of like the little Hobbits’ journey to mount doom
*{{t|Flannel}}
*{{t|Flannel}}
{{ref}}
{{ref}}