Contracts

Some Random Friday Fun: A Law Professor Turned Songwriter

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Some people — for example, Chief Justice John Roberts — are not fans of contemporary legal scholarship. These critics might say, “You’d have to pay me to read the writings of a law professor!”

Well, what if a law professor were willing to pay you to check out his writings? And what if the writings in question were not, say, 150-page law review articles on “the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th-century Bulgaria,” but fun stuff — like song lyrics?

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Moonlighting: Feeling the Kumbaya (Part II)

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In Feeling the Kumbaya (Part I), we looked at how different the perspectives of business clients and in-house lawyers can be. Below are a few techniques that have helped me and my clients to feel the Kumbaya for each other (or at least have helped them to not think I’m only a total loser who has nothing better to do than change all of the commas in a list after a colon to semicolons).

Prioritize. I used to suspect that there was something about going in-house that made perfectly good law firm attorneys develop permanent amnesia when it came to good drafting. It was the strangest thing. Even my husband, a supposedly respectable corporate law firm attorney, after going in-house, suddenly started to let minor errors appear in his emails. My judgment of him was quick and deliberate. He would sometimes mistakenly use “there” instead of “their,” for God’s sakes! What lawyer does that?

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Prominent Plaintiffs’ Attorneys Ordered to Pay Up After Losing Breach of Contract Trial

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Last week, more than a dozen high-profile mass torts attorneys lost a San Francisco jury trial against a small technology company. The jury decided the attorneys had illegally breached a document review contract during the high-profile Chinese drywall class-action litigation.

On September 19, the 14 defendants in Cataphora Inc. v Parker were ordered to pay $317,113 to the technology company in lost profits, plus attorneys’ fees.

“These guys are the worst of hypocrites that you can possibly find,” said Roger Chadderdon, technology counsel at Cataphora. “They claim to be trying to help the little guy, but what they’re doing is trying to put more money in their own pockets. Everybody knows that, but this is a case that illustrates it beyond what I have ever seen.”

Clearly, tempers are still running hot. We’ve got more from both sides of the dispute, and a quick refresher on Chinese drywall, after the jump….

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Morning Docket: 08.08.11

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* A scam blogger hit it hard last week, calling Cooley out for policing the internet. Guess we know why s/he chose to go by “Rockstar.” [Detroit Free Press]

* Hundreds of people gathered on Saturday to remember the life of slain Mercer Law School graduate, Lauren Giddings. Rest in peace. [Baltimore Sun]

* Other than the fact that this dude waited nearly a decade to sue, Facebook now says it has “smoking gun” evidence that Paul Ceglia’s case is a fraud. Like. [Bloomberg]

* The Innocence Project says that past DNA evidence is a “poor judge of character.” You’d say that, too, if you exonerated a future rapist. [New York Daily News]

* Lady Gaga is being sued for copyright infringement. Seriously? Get it straight, lady: Gaga only copies from Madonna. [Daily Mail]

* In this economy, to get a job you have to make believe you love the law. Career advice for old farts can be applicable for young lawyers, too. [Boston Globe]

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The Facebook Lawsuit: Everybody Calm Down and Remember Your 1L Contracts Class

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The internet is on fire today. The purported contract between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and random New York resident Paul Ceglia has hit the worldwide web. We’ve written about Ceglia’s claims to 84% of Facebook before. But now that people have actually seen the document, everybody wants to talk about it.

I even ended up on Fox Business News, sharing my analysis of the Facebook contract.

As most lawyers know, just because you have a signed contract doesn’t necessarily mean you have anything. What was the bargain? Was there a meeting of the minds? Contracts aren’t always clear about what the parties are actually agreeing to.

This one, allegedly signed by Zuckerberg when he was a college sophomore, has lots of room for interpretation…

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Do Lawyers Actually Read Boilerplate Contracts?
Richard Posner and Evan Chesler don’t; do you?

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Judge Richard Posner made one remark that stole the show at a panel about regulation at the recent American Constitution Society conference. We summarized his quip on Twitter:

Judge Posner at ACS panel: For my home equity loan, I got 100s of pages of documentation; I didn’t read, I just signed. #ACS10 #Posner #LOL

This generated laughter from the crowd, due to Judge Posner’s status as one of the greatest legal minds of his (or any other) generation. It was amusing to imagine the brilliant Posner flipping page after page of paperwork and mechanically scribbling next to every “Sign Here” flag, without even bothering to read what he was signing. It’s the kind of behavior one would expect from a person earning $35,000 and a buying a $600,000 home two hours outside of Phoenix, circa 2006 — but not from one of America’s leading jurists.

As it turns out, Judge Posner isn’t the only boldface name of the legal profession who skips over the fine print in form contracts….

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Richard Posner and Evan Chesler don’t; do you?“

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Bullfighter Arrested for Cowardice Breach of Contract

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Toreador, En garde ... Et songe bien, oui, songe en combattant Qu'un oeil noir te regarde!

In America, nonperformance on a contract usually involves a failure to deliver goods or a failure to pay. In Mexico, apparently contract law covers a failure of courage. The ABA Journal reports:

Gored by a bull in a previous match several months ago, Mexican bullfighter Christian Hernandez lost his nerve and bolted from the ring ahead of a charging bull on Sunday, dropping his cape along the way…

But his escape from the charging animal left him vulnerable to legal action.

After his inglorious exit from the ring, Hernandez was arrested for breach of contract, jailed, and ordered to pay a fine.

And yes, there’s video…

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Cornell Contracts Exam Should Fail for Ambiguity, Vagueness

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With all the students just dying to get into Cornell Law School, I figured I’d give you guys a taste of what exams will be like for the few of you lucky enough to get in. A contracts exam there turned into something so complicated that you need to be an expert in statutory interpretation just to understand the rules for the exam.

In law school, you’re supposed to learn to be careful with words. Really careful. Now, I didn’t really take that lesson to heart, and apparently neither did professor Chantal Thomas. She gave out some pretty mixed messages regarding the word limit for her contracts exam.

Tipsters report that in class, Professor Thomas said that there would be a word limit. But even that in-class directive was vague:

She said, “well, maybe 1000 words.” This in itself is ambiguous. 1000 words per question? 1000 words for the whole exam?

Perhaps you think that the exam itself would make clear this most basic exam parameter? Think again…

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