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Three Key Concepts Every Lawyer SHOULD Know about Drafting Contracts


Total Credits: 3.0 including 2.0 General, 1.0 Ethics

Average Rating:
   19
Categories:
Legal Writing
Faculty:
Lenne' Eidson Espenschied |  Lori Brownlee
Duration:
3 Hours 15 Minutes
Format:
Audio and Video
License:
Never expires.

Dates


Description

Three Key Concepts Every Lawyer SHOULD Know about Drafting Contracts

Thursday, October 14, 2021 | 9:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

2.0 General and 1.0 Ethics CLE Credits | CLE# 2021-011


 

 

Presented by Lenné Eidson Espenschied

 

Understanding key elements in contract drafting are necessary skills for attorneys. This course will help you understand three key concepts on how to draft agreements to mitigate risk for your clients, hit the right deal points and set up transactions for success.

 

Concept 1:  What Litigators Should Know about Contract Drafting

What Litigators Should Know about Contract Drafting – In a word, EVERYTHING!  Litigators regularly draft settlement agreements, waivers, and releases as part of litigation practice and often draft other contracts as well; however, the objectives of contract drafting differ from the objectives taught in "traditional" legal writing classes.  This means even experienced litigators' contract drafting skills may be woefully deficient until they take deliberate steps to hone them.  This program presents ten practical techniques to significantly improve drafting competency in just one hour!

 

Concept 2: Better Sentences, Better Contracts:  7 New Tricks for Old Dogs.

One of the most frequent causes of contract litigation is syntactic ambiguity:  either two or more interpretations of a sentence are equally plausible under the circumstances, or the syntax is so garbled it's unclear what was intended.  Avoid critical mistakes and instantly improve your contracts simply by improving the sentences that comprise them.  This seminar presents seven practical techniques for drafting better sentences in contracts. 

 

Concept 3:  Five Things You Should Know about Allocating Risk in a Contract

Contract – Contracts serve to allocate risk among the parties.  One of the drafter’s primary responsibilities in drafting a contract is to ensure that the client accepts an appropriate degree of risk for the circumstances.  In this program, we'll discuss how to:

•           determine the appropriate degree of risk in a contract;

•           assess risk in the template you’re marking up;

•           shift risk from one party to the other within the sentences that comprise the contract;

•           shift risk within the scope section; and

•           draft effective liability-shifting provisions.

 

 
Speaker Bio:
Lenné Eidson Espenschied has earned her status as one of the Top 3 contract drafting speakers in the country by continually striving for excellence and providing innovative, practical skills-based training for transactional lawyers.  She practiced law in Atlanta, Georgia for 25 years, focusing on corporate and transactional representation of technology-based businesses.  She is the author of two books published by the American Bar Association:  Contract Drafting:  Powerful Prose in Transactional Practice (ABA Fundamentals, 3rd Ed. 2019) and The Grammar and Writing Handbook for Lawyers (ABA Fundamentals, 2011).  After graduating from the University of Georgia School of Law magna cum laude, Ms. Espenschied began her legal practice at the firm now known as Eversheds Sutherland; she also served as Senior Counsel in the legal department of Bank of America before eventually opening her own law office.  As a law professor, Ms. Espenschied taught commercial law, contracts, and contract drafting.  Her passion is helping lawyers acquire the skills they need to be successful in transactional practice. 
 

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