Or any part thereof

As pathologically as they abhor elegance, legal eagles deplore a vacuum, and if you’re the sort who believes that a sum does not include each of its parts taken individually, the work-a-day expression “Or any part thereof” is perfect for the pregnant pause you might otherwise have in your draft.

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It is also a satisfying way of “improving” the drafting of a those who themselves aggravate the negotiation process with leaden augmentations. We all know one.

However pedantic your adversary may be, in a long document he will be bound to have missed a clarifying construction somewhere. It will be a cinch to find it. And then, “, or any part thereof” — scrawled on a rider, ideally, for dramatic effect — is your slam dunk; your dead fish shot in a barrel. You’ve got him.

With this harmless, but spiteful, unguent, appended in the privacy of your own chambers with a lawyer’s flourish you can perform same pimp-roll that prompts a goal-scoring footballer’s swept-back wing fighter-jet impersonation to the corner flag or a baseballer’s serial high-five as she ambles past the dug-out.

See also

• Negotiation
• Rider