The BUSKLAW Newsletter

From my colleague Mark Grossman   comes this joke (just in time for April Fool's Day): A man in a hot air balloon is lost. He reduces the balloon's height and spots a man below. He shouts, "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?" The man below says: "Yes, you're in a hot air balloon hovering at 30 feet." " You must be a lawyer," says the balloonist. "I am," replies the man. "How did you know?" "Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but useless." The man below says, "You must work in business." "I do," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?" "Well," says the lawyer, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault." ______________________________________...

This is a follow-up to my recent post about contractual "gotchas." Some lawyers think that they're being crafty (and doing their clients a favor) by  deliberately introducing ambiguous provisions in a contract.  Plain-language expert Ken Adams points to an example from a 2007 post here . And negotiation expert and author Victoria Pynchon points to another example  (involving the meaning of "sudden and accidental" from environmental liability insurance policies) from her Negotiation Law Blog . This gamesmanship strategy is not only ethically questionable but also likely to backfire on the supposedly crafty lawyer because ambiguity often cuts both ways - and courts often interpret ambiguous provisions in a contract against the parties who drafted them.   A lawyer negotiating a contract under a tight deadline may use that pressure as an excuse to leave a disputed provision open to interpretation to meet the deadline. This is risky business - it may lead to co...