My mission
My mission is to represent and counsel my clients professionally and candidly, while providing them with solutions that minimize risk, but that are also modern and approachable.
By offering concise, clear agreements and solutions, I support my clients in getting on the same page with those they’re transacting with; and to get on that same page more efficiently and quickly.
Make it make sense
I have worked with all sorts of clients in all sorts of industries, and I’ve observed a common issue. Far too often, clients do not fully understand the agreements that they’ve received - or even those agreements which have been prepared for the client’s own use.
An important lesson I learned from working in-house: if a legal solution does not feel doable for the business, it isn’t actually a solution. A client has to feel comfortable using an agreement, or implementing a process or policy, otherwise they…won’t.
I aim to create and negotiate agreements that my clients and the other parties involved are all able to understand, with the hope that this sets a bright tone for the transaction, and that misunderstandings can be avoided down the line. This helps clients foster positive relationships with their own clients and vendors.
No more heretofore
Certain clients may prefer traditionally-styled contracts - the ones that you are probably more familiar with, involving many “henceforths” and “notwithstanding the foregoings”. In some industries, these conventional contracts may be most appropriate. But, for many organizations’ needs, a style of drafting known as “Plain English” serves to provide legal protection, but in a concise way, with language that is more easily consumed and understood.
If you are interested in learning more about Plain English agreements, I recommend this Harvard Business Review article, The Case for Plain-Language Contracts [1].
[1] Shawn Burton, ‘The Case for Plain Language Contracts’, Harvard Business Review, January– February 2018 at hbr.org/2018/01/the-case-for-plain-language-contracts.