New York Businesses and Others Should be Familiar with the Style Guide for Contract Drafting
Those who believe that legal draftsmanship is simply a bid to obfuscate through “legalese” are not only misinformed, they now have a bedtime reading companion to make their misunderstanding even more apparent. While there are some contracts that are denser, more convoluted, and more unnecessarily complex than others, the end goal for any contract is to provide a clear and objectively actionable framework. As the number of commercial lawsuits in this country indicates, our success rate could be improved. On the other hand, the number of actual commercial contract trials is relatively low. I would like to think that is because most written contracts that are the product of lawyering achieve the above goal.
And to that end, there is the Manual of Style for Contract Drafting (“MSCD,”) a style guide for drafting contracts that consistently make sense. No practitioner should be without it and every business client should at least give it a once over.
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