Drafting better contracts reduces misunderstandings, saves negotiation time, and ensures legal accuracy. This guide provides in-house legal teams with practical tips for creating clear, simple, and legally sound contracts.
10 legal drafting philosophies you can adopt:
- Time and resources are best spent negotiating the commercial deal, not the T&Cs.
- 90%+ of your standard commercial contracts should not have any questions, negotiations or changes relating to the T&Cs.
- Start with fair, balanced T&Cs that you would expect if you were the other party.
- Don’t use one word more than necessary. Save every minute and every keystroke.
- Use simple, common language that’s understood by the audience – not archaic legal terminology. Write as you speak.
- Don’t unknowingly increase your risk profile and, of course, still be legally correct.
- Structure the document to ensure it’s as quick and straightforward as possible for the audience.
- Make it simple, empowering and safe for non-lawyers to complete the first draft without the need to change the T&Cs.
- Draft the document so it can more easily be digitised and automated in future.
- Remove ambiguity.
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