Semantic code project: next steps: Difference between revisions

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 ===Levels of meaning/audience===
-There are at least three layers of meaning, which equate with audiences: (a) business: what practically is the deal I have to do; (b) litigation: if worst came to worst what would a court say about this (c) risk monitoring, increasingly my machine/code. These layers translate more or less to:
+There are at least three layers of meaning, which equate with audiences: (a) business: what practically is the deal I have to do; (b) [[litigation]]: how to ''avoid'' it by being so clear no one would take the point; (c) ease of systematic risk monitoring of legal terms, recognising this will increasingly be by means of machine/code.
+These layers translate more or less to:
 *'''The term sheet''': these are the [[cocktail napkin]] terms; merchants assume the particular articulation of things that “go without saying” can be left to the legal layer.
-*'''The legal layer''': written in legal text (which may be more or less legalese) but which is designed to articulate with sufficient clarity those things that ''ought to'' “go without saying” in fact ''do''. Here the objective is not “to convince a judge” so much as put quotidian matters beyond [[doubt]] so that ''there is no point referring them to a judge''. A [[piece of paper]] is a poor risk management tool, except as far as it discourages vexatious or wilful interpretations.
+*'''The legal layer''': written in legal text (which may be more or less [[legalese]]) but which is designed to ensure that those things that ''ought to'' “go without saying” in fact ''do''. To address an assertion made on the call which, on reflection, I would resist: it is ''never'' the objective “to convince a judge”: it is to put matters so clearly that ''no-one would need to refer the document to a judge''. This is important, as “I am writing with litigation in mind” is, otherwise, a justification for writing in a legalistic way: ''I write this way because this is what a court would expect''. This is a fallacy: First, a contract that comes before a court ''has already failed''. A contract that is so clear that no-one in her right mind would litigate it will, if litigated, have the best likelihood of a positive outcome. Second, to write something in careful legalese for the benefit of a court sounds ''cute'': as if you are writing a coded message that you hope a judge will understand, but that your counterparty will not. That is bad faith. A [[piece of paper]] is a poor risk management tool, except as far as it discourages vexatious or wilful interpretations.
 *'''The code layer''': The legal terms (be they term sheet or [[boilerplate]] terms) rendered in some kind of propositional or elementary form that reveals their fundamental logical structure.