Associate's Mind

  Just like the rest of the Apple product line received a sales boost from the success of the iPhone (dubbed the “halo effect), stories are popping up around Time’s cover story below: I have no clue how the article reads, it’s locked behind a paywall. Does Time still come out in print? I was actually kind [...]

  Many lawyers will spend significant amounts of time reading, analyzing, and deconstructing arguments of opposing counsel. This requires a significant amount of reading an research. But Daniel C. Dennett, Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University, recently shared this quick shortcut he uses to when reading argumentative essays from other philosophers: Look for “surely” in the document, and check each occurrence. Not always, [...]

  Last month I noted that Mailchimp re-wrote their terms of service, mostly ditching legalese and adopting plain language, in order to better serve their users. Not to be left out, Reddit just overhauled their Privacy Policy (discussion of policy), ditching the old, off-the-shelf legalese version with a new plain language one crafted especially for Reddit (actuall [...]

  Quick FYI for those wanting to submit articles to Law Review/Journals, see this paper on SSRN entitled: “Information for Submitting Articles to Law Reviews & Journals“: This document contains information about submitting articles to law reviews and journals, including the methods for submitting an article, any special formatting requirements, how to contact them to request an expedited [...]

  We want to present our terms like any other content that’s meant for humans, not just for other attorneys. - Valerie Danin, General Counsel for MailChimp So begins a blog post at MailChimp, in which they describe how they have modified and updated their Terms and Policies. It’s a rather disappointing, if not unexpected observation [...]

I’m still on my SSRN kick for whatever reason, deep diving into obscure law review articles whose totals reads don’t amount to one days traffic on Associate’s Mind. It’s a shame really as there are some worthwhile articles crammed in with the likes of Harry Potter and the Law or whatever. Of course, the other [...]

I was looking through some old  law review articles I’ve downloaded (don’t judge – I’m not the only one) and I came across an interesting survey and results on judges’ preferences regarding writing styles entitled: PERSUADING JUDGES: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF WRITING STYLE, PERSUASION, AND THE USE OF PLAIN ENGLISH by Sean Flammer. The article rightly points out that [...]

  this is the graffiti in the bathroom stalls:

Unfortunately, most lawyers are lousy writers. Considering that the primary form of communication and work among and between lawyers is writing, one would think that they would be better at it. But they’re not. And polishing and honing one’s writings skills is fairly low on the list of priorities for lawyers (especially since they believe they [...]

  Below you can see the difference between winning Olympic vaults, 56 years apart: Here are two contract clauses, 56 years apart. The old one: The parties hereto do hereby stipulate and agree that it is their intention and covenant that this agreement and performance hereunder and all suits and special proceedings hereunder be construed [...]