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===Lack of trust indicators=== | ===Lack of trust indicators=== | ||
Any time it seems you are straining to button down any doubt, however fanciful, you impute to your counterparty an air of bad faith which will — even though it may be fully justified — put up hackles. Clarity and doubt avoidance is the goal, but there are ways of achieving this without looking like you wouldn't trust your client further than you can throw it. | Any time it seems you are straining to button down any doubt, however fanciful, you impute to your counterparty an air of bad faith which will — even though it may be fully justified — put up hackles. Clarity and doubt avoidance is the goal, but there are ways of achieving this without looking like you wouldn't trust your client further than you can throw it. | ||
*'''Unnecessary definitions''': Resist the temptation, which many legal eagles cannot, to define every variable term in your contract. The simply appearance of a definition - the brackets, quotes, and bold — punctuates your text with an air that we are lot leaving anything to chance in the face of an opportunistic cad such as you. That is not an impression one normally likes to give to ones customer, and it may have the unintended consequence that your customer sees it as an invitation to ''be'' opportunistic, should there be any holes in your punctillaiety,<ref>Yes, I did just make this | *'''Unnecessary definitions''': Resist the temptation, which many legal eagles cannot, to define every variable term in your contract. The simply appearance of a definition - the brackets, quotes, and bold — punctuates your text with an air that we are lot leaving anything to chance in the face of an opportunistic cad such as you. That is not an impression one normally likes to give to ones customer, and it may have the unintended consequence that your customer sees it as an invitation to ''be'' opportunistic, should there be any holes in your punctillaiety,<ref>Yes, I did just make this word up. But it’s rather good, don’t you think?</ref> or at the very least to push back wherever it feels you have drawn your boundaries too widely. Needless to say ''any'' time spent negotiating clarifications is time wasted; time spent arguing about the definition of “the customer” is positively damaging. | ||
*'''Pedantic clarity tics''': Expressions, which finance lawyers love, like “[[any and all]]”, “[[one or more]]”, “[[whether or not]]”, “[[including without limitation]]”, “[[unless otherwise agreed in writing|unless expressly agreed in writing]]” betray not only a lack of confidence in the plain meaning of words, but a lack of trust in the intentions of your customer. | *'''Pedantic clarity tics''': Expressions, which finance lawyers love, like “[[any and all]]”, “[[one or more]]”, “[[whether or not]]”, “[[including without limitation]]”, “[[unless otherwise agreed in writing|unless expressly agreed in writing]]” betray not only a lack of confidence in the plain meaning of words, but a lack of trust in the intentions of your customer. | ||
*'''Responsibility avoiders''': Write with energy, confidence and consequence. Own what you say. Avoid passives, which can bury responsibility. “An oversight was made in your monthly statements” is weaselly: say instead, “''we'' made an error in your monthly statements.” That said, unless you are owning the error yourself, cabinet collective responsibility applies: we made an error — all of us; the body corporate — don’t throw some faceless employee under the bus.<ref>As to this see more generally {{Fieldguide}}, which makes an impassioned and fair case that the root cause of what inevitably gets put down to human error is generally management failure in any case: i.e., it really ''is'' all of us.</ref> | *'''Responsibility avoiders''': Write with energy, confidence and consequence. Own what you say. Avoid passives, which can bury responsibility. “An oversight was made in your monthly statements” is weaselly: say instead, “''we'' made an error in your monthly statements.” That said, unless you are owning the error yourself, cabinet collective responsibility applies: we made an error — all of us; the body corporate — don’t throw some faceless employee under the bus.<ref>As to this see more generally {{Fieldguide}}, which makes an impassioned and fair case that the root cause of what inevitably gets put down to human error is generally management failure in any case: i.e., it really ''is'' all of us.</ref> | ||
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or | or | ||
{{quote|You | {{quote|You hold us harmless against any claims we suffer and must reimburse us promptly on demand for any extraordinary losses we incur as a result of our engagement and our reasonable performance of our services under it.}} | ||
Which will you choose? | Which will you choose? | ||