Contract Lawyer Quotes

Every love relationship rests on an unwritten agreement unthinkingly concluded by the lovers in the first weeks of their love. They are still in a kind of dream but at the same time, without knowing it, are drawing up, like uncompromising lawyers, the detailed clauses of their contract. O lovers! Be careful in those dangerous first days! Once you've brought breakfast in bed you'll have to bring it forever, unless you want to be accused of lovelessness and betrayal.

Why should love require a contract? Why put yourself into the clutches of the state and give it power over you? Why invite lawyers to fuck around with your assets? Marriage is for the immature and the insecure and the ignorant. We who see through such institutions should be content to live together without legal coercion.

Before I could answer, there was a soft knock on the door. I turned to see an auburn-haired, green-eyed, freckle-faced young woman walk in. Her hair was a mass of soft curls and she wore no makeup. My first impression was to describe her as a plain-Jane. On closer inspection, hers was a strong and unique face. She dressed in slacks, silk blouse, and no visible jewelry. All of which, to me, indicated serene confidence. Her green eyes were piercing with almost a wild look to them. She handed the contract copies to the lawyer.

To put it another way, every love relationship is based upon unwritten conventions rashly agreed upon by the lovers during the first weeks of their love. On the one hand, they are living a sort of dream; on the other, without realizing it, they are drawing up the fine print of their contracts like the most hard-nosed of lawyers. O lovers! Be wary during those perilous first days! If you serve the other party breakfast in bed, you will be obliged to continue same in perpetuity or face charges of animosity and treason!

As my lawyer dad would say, I had breached a contract with the devil.

A word now about the bar exam: It's a necessary chore, a rite of passage for any just-hatched lawyer wishing to practice, and though the content and structure of the test itself vary somewhat from state to state, the experience of taking it - a two-day, twelve-hour exam meant to prove your knowledge of everything from contract law to arcane rules about secured transactions - is pretty much universally recognized as hellish.

On the second floor was the office in which Houston pounded an ancient typewriter with two fingers, always setting an example of unceasing hard work for his admiring students. They had no hint of the fact that their hard-driving dean had contracted tuberculosis while serving as a GI in France in Word War I. Houstan always seemed vibrant and impassioned in the chase for justice as he tried to expose his students to everything relating to the law that might give them an advantage. . . . "I never worked hard until I got to the Howard Law School and met Charlie Houston," Marshal told me. "I saw this man's dedication, his vision, his willingness to sacrifice, and I told myself, 'You either shape up or ship out.' When you are being challenged by a great human being, you know that you can't ship out." So Houston rescued Marshall and launched him into a career as one of the greatest lawyers in American history.

A world without love is a world governed by rigid contracts and inexorable duties, a world in which – God forbid! – the lawyers run everything. The mark of really loving someone or something is unconditionality and excess, engagement and commitment, fire and passion.

Nowadays… deals are transactional rather than personal. Instead of placing your faith in a person, you get lawyers to write safeguards into the contract. This is an historic shift from a trust economy to a risk economy. But trust is not a dispensable luxury. It is the very basis of our social life. Many scholars believe that capitalism had religious roots because people could trust other people who, feeling that they were answerable to God, could be relied on to be honest in business. A world without trust is a lonely and dangerous place.

lawyers. An error at the hour of signing a big contract, or negotiating an acquisition, could easily cost you millions, or be the deciding factor between summers in Ibiza with your model girlfriend or taking a consolation-prize job as product manager at Oracle instead (look,

Because it is impossible to foresee all problems, fear-based contracts are more likely to lead to confusion (and further lawyer fees) than to create clarity and satisfaction.

How are the lawyers going to draft that clause of the contract?  Jason must provide Robert with epic battle footage?

June 5: Eunice Murray calls the studio to report Marilyn is ill, and Dr. Lee Siegel is dispatched to her home. He discovers that she is suffering from sinusitis and has a temperature of 102 degrees. Marilyn’s lawyer, Mickey Rudin, receives a letter stating Fox’s intention to sue for breach of contract. June

On New Year’s Eve of 1976, Trump proposed to Ivana, later presenting her with a three-carat Tiffany diamond ring. But before there could be a wedding, less than a year after they met, there was the prenup—ultimately, as many as four or five contracts. The negotiations between Trump and Ivana—Roy Cohn urged Donald to begin married life with codified financial arrangements—followed a pattern that came to define Trumpism: boasts of wealth and influence, a highly public airing of grievances, and dramatic battles staged in gossip columns and courtrooms. The marriage would start—and later explode—to the accompaniment of lawyers.

The Canonization" For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love, Or chide my palsy, or my gout, My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout, With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve, Take you a course, get you a place, Observe his honor, or his grace, Or the king's real, or his stampèd face Contemplate; what you will, approve, So you will let me love. Alas, alas, who's injured by my love? What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned? Who says my tears have overflowed his ground? When did my colds a forward spring remove? When did the heats which my veins fill Add one more to the plaguy bill? Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still Litigious men, which quarrels move, Though she and I do love. Call us what you will, we are made such by love; Call her one, me another fly, We're tapers too, and at our own cost die, And we in us find the eagle and the dove. The phœnix riddle hath more wit By us; we two being one, are it. So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit. We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love. We can die by it, if not live by love, And if unfit for tombs and hearse Our legend be, it will be fit for verse; And if no piece of chronicle we prove, We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms; As well a well-wrought urn becomes The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs, And by these hymns, all shall approve Us canonized for Love. And thus invoke us: "You, whom reverend love Made one another's hermitage; You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage; Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove Into the glasses of your eyes (So made such mirrors, and such spies, That they did all to you epitomize) Countries, towns, courts: beg from above A pattern of your love!

Hoy asks if Maggie has any plans to file a civil lawsuit. He knows that she did, in fact, because, as Maggie will find out later, his son worked for the firm that Maggie consulted with. She didn’t sign a contract with that firm, because its lawyers told her she didn’t have a case. The consult was therefore not protected under attorney-client privilege.

The land was torn apart in a legal dispute. Soon it was so devastated, nothing could live here- not plant or animal. Only lawyers. But eventually the place fell into lawlessness, and lawyers can't exist in an area of lawlessness, so they went feral. Some say they still roam the land. You'll suddenly hear someone yell, 'Objection!' and then you'll be torn apart like an improperly witnessed contract.

I don't understand why anybody old enough to know the score ever gets married, anyway. Why should love require a contract? Why put yourself into the clutches of the state and give it power over you? Why invite lawyers to fuck around with your assets? Marriage is for the immature and the insecure and the ignorant. We who see through such institutions should be content to live together without legal coercion

Ironically, Jericho could have left sooner than he did: “Even though I’d been working in WCW for over a year I had never signed my contract. I wasn’t holding out for more money or having a legal disagreement, I simply never put the pen to the paper and returned the contract to WCW’s lawyers. Nobody seemed to realize it and I decided to see how long I could go without signing. It was astonishing that no one in the office had ever followed up with me about it, but this was the same company that once sent me a FedEx with nothing inside, so it wasn’t too hard to believe.”18

Fitz sat in a green leather armchair. To Ethel’s surprise, Albert Solman was there, too, in a black suit and a stiff-collared shirt. A lawyer by training, Solman was what Edwardian gentlemen called a man of business. He managed Fitz’s money, checking his income from coal royalties and rents, paying the bills, and issuing cash for staff wages. He also dealt with leases and other contracts, and occasionally brought lawsuits against people who tried to cheat Fitz. Ethel had met him before and did not like him. She thought he was a know-all. Perhaps all lawyers were; she did not know: he was the only one she had ever met.

Man is born free but is everywhere in chains,” wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract in 1762. A generation of crusading lawyers put Enlightenment principles into action by helping slaves sue for the right to be treated as ordinary French subjects. They took the issue of human bondage to the sovereign parlement courts of France—and won, in nearly every case, liberty for their black and mixed-race clients. The infuriated Louis XV found his hands tied. The phrase “absolute monarchy” is misleading: Ancien Régime France was a state of laws, of ancient precedents, where the spark of enlightened reason could and occasionally did ignite great things.

What it demands next - again, like many trades - is the ability to see the problem before you ... and then, just as immediately, the rat's tail of problems that might follow. Much the way that, for a contractor, a house is not just a structure - it's a snarl of pipes engorging with ice in the winter, of shingles swelling with humidity in the summer, or rain gutters belching up fountains of water in the spring, of cement splitting in the first autumn cold - so too is a house something else for a lawyer. A house is a locked safe full of contracts, of liens, of future lawsuits, of possible violations: it represents potential attacks on your property, on your goods, on your person, on your privacy.

Bob Cavallo remembers early on in the process, ‘We were at odds with each other. Our contract was up; five years had gone by since Purple Rain. We met at the Four Seasons with his lawyer and his accountant, me and Steve Fargnoli to discuss some kind of rapprochement because he had fired us. Basically he said, “I’ll work with you again but you’ve got to help me make this movie.” I read the treatment and said, “This could be an interesting thing,” and I said, “I’ll try to put you together with some young hip writers and maybe we can come up with a script quickly, ’cause this is pretty detailed.” And he went, “What are you talking about? That is the script.” It was thirty pages. And he said, “I’m going to shoot it, I know exactly how to do it.” So I said, “Maybe we could get this on Broadway for you. Would you be interested in that?” And he said, “No.” Now he was pissed that I didn’t think this was a good enough script, so we shook hands and that was the end of it. Then, about a year later, we were suing each other. But even when we sued each other, it was kinda funny. I said, “How could you not pay me?” He said, “How could you sue me?” He said, “You can’t have my children, those songs. You’re gonna give your involvement in those songs to your grandchildren?” And I said, “Yeah, I put ten years of my life into you, and you sucked all the air out of the room. I couldn’t really manage anybody else except for your friends.

The thing many people don’t realize about corporate lawyers is that they are nothing like what you see on TV shows. Sherry, Aldridge, and I will never step foot in a courtroom. We’ll never argue a case. We do deals; we’re not litigators. We prepare documents and review every piece of paperwork for a merger or an acquisition. Or to take a company public. On Suits, Harvey does both paperwork and crushes it in court. In reality, the lawyers at our firm who argue cases don’t have a clue what we do in these conference rooms. Most of them haven’t prepared a document in a decade. People think our form of corporate law is the less ambitious of the two, and while in many ways it’s less glamorous—no closing arguments, no media interviews—nothing compares to the power of the paper. At the end of the day, law comes down to what is written, and we do the writing. I love the order of deal making, the clarity of language—how there is little room for interpretation and none for error. I love the black-and-white terms. I love that in the final stages of closing a deal—particularly those of the magnitude Wachtell takes on—seemingly insurmountable obstacles arise. Apocalyptic scenarios, disagreements, and details that threaten to topple it all. It seems impossible we’ll ever get both parties on the same page, but somehow we do. Somehow, contracts get agreed upon and signed. Somehow, deals get done. And when it finally happens, it’s exhilarating. Better than any day in court. It’s written. Binding. Anyone can bend a judge’s or jury’s will with bravado, but to do it on paper—in black and white—that takes a particular kind of artistry. It’s truth in poetry. I

Watson wolfed down his breakfast and set the plate aside. "What are you thinking?" he asked. "Turnabout, fair play, et cetera." "Oh," I said, stretching until my fingers brushed the curtains. "I was just refining a few points." "Points?" "Of the terms and conditions of our relationship." "The what?" Watson coughed. "Sorry?" "Do you need a glass of water?" I asked, concerned. "No," he said, "but a clarification would be nice." "That's the goal." I sat up, steepling my hands under my chin. "I spent the last few weeks drawing it up on a legal pad. It's only about twenty-three pages long -" "Only." "And I tried to keep the addendums to a minimum." I was also attempting to keep a straight face, but I didn't want Watson to know that. I had given this matter significant thought. I certainly hadn't written us up contracts. Lawyers were far too expensive.

Socrates chose to drink hemlock rather than to follow morality in contravention of Athen's laws. As depicted in Plato's Crito dialogue, Socrates had been convicted by a jury of 500 Athenians of impiety and of corrupting the young. He was sentenced to die by drinking hemlock. His friend Crito tried to convince him to escape rather than to accept the immoral judgement of the Athenian state (Socrates had not corrupted the young but educated them.) Socrates responded by pointing out that he had lived in Athens as an Athenian citizen, accepting all of the benefits of its government and laws. On this basis, he had a type of "Social Contract" obligation to continue to accept the Athen's laws and legal judgement. He saw this as a moral obligation, even if the judgment at hand was itself immoral. Thus, for Socrates, and Plato, the law has its own morality, even when its results are immoral.

The weight room is empty except for Peter. He’s at the bench press, lifting weights. When he sees me, he smiles. “Are you here to spot me?” He sits up and wipes sweat off his face with the collar of his T-shirt. My heart squeezes painfully. “I’m here to break up. To fake break up, I mean.” Peter does a double take. “Wait. What?” “There’s no need to keep it going. You got what you wanted, right? You saved face, and so did I. I talked to Josh, and everything’s back to normal with us again. And my sister will be home soon. So…mission accomplished.” Slowly he nods. “Yeah, I guess.” My heart is breaking even as I smile. “So okay, then.” With a flourish I whip our contract out of my bag. “Null and void. Both parties have hereby fulfilled their obligations to each other in perpetuity.” I’m just rattling off lawyer words. “You carry that around with you?” “Of course! Kitty’s such a snoop. She’d find it in two seconds.” I hold up the piece of paper, poised to rip it in half, but Peter grabs it from me. “Wait! What about the ski trip?” “What about it?” “You’re still coming, right?” I hadn’t thought of that. The only reason I was going to go was for Peter. I can’t go now. I can’t be a witness to Peter and Genevieve’s reunion, I just can’t. I want them to come back from the trip magically together again, and it will be like this whole thing was just something I dreamed up. “I’m not going to go.” His eyes widen. “Come on, Covey! Don’t bail on me now. We already signed up and gave the deposits and everything. Let’s just go, and have that be our final hurrah.” When I start to protest, Peter shakes his head. “You’re going, so take this contract back.” Peter refolds it and carefully puts it back in my bag. Why is it so hard to say no to him? Is this what it’s like to be in love with somebody?

3. Serving Two Masters Derrick Bell has pointed out a third structure that impedes reform, this time in law. To litigate a law-reform case, the lawyer needs a flesh-and-blood client. One might wish to establish the right of poor consumers to rescind a sales contract or to challenge the legal fiction that a school district is desegregated if the authorities have arranged that the makeup of certain schools is half black and half Chicano (as some of them did in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education). Suppose, however, that the client and his or her community do not want the very same remedy that the lawyer does. The lawyer, who may represent a civil rights or public interest organization, may want a sweeping decree that names a new evil and declares it contrary to constitutional principles. He or she may be willing to gamble and risk all. The client, however, may want something different—better schools or more money for the ones in his or her neighborhood.

As we’ve seen, one of the most frequently pursued paths for achievement-minded college seniors is to spend several years advancing professionally and getting trained and paid by an investment bank, consulting firm, or law firm. Then, the thought process goes, they can set out to do something else with some exposure and experience under their belts. People are generally not making lifelong commitments to the field in their own minds. They’re “getting some skills” and making some connections before figuring out what they really want to do. I subscribed to a version of this mind-set when I graduated from Brown. In my case, I went to law school thinking I’d practice for a few years (and pay down my law school debt) before lining up another opportunity. It’s clear why this is such an attractive approach. There are some immensely constructive things about spending several years in professional services after graduating from college. Professional service firms are designed to train large groups of recruits annually, and they do so very successfully. After even just a year or two in a high-level bank or consulting firm, you emerge with a set of skills that can be applied in other contexts (financial modeling in Excel if you’re a financial analyst, PowerPoint and data organization and presentation if you’re a consultant, and editing and issue spotting if you’re a lawyer). This is very appealing to most any recent graduate who may not yet feel equipped with practical skills coming right out of college. Even more than the professional skill you gain, if you spend time at a bank, consultancy, or law firm, you will become excellent at producing world-class work. Every model, report, presentation, or contract needs to be sophisticated, well done, and error free, in large part because that’s one of the core value propositions of your organization. The people above you will push you to become more rigorous and disciplined, and your work product will improve across the board as a result. You’ll get used to dressing professionally, preparing for meetings, speaking appropriately, showing up on time, writing official correspondence, and so forth. You will be able to speak the corporate language. You’ll become accustomed to working very long hours doing detail-intensive work. These attributes are transferable to and helpful in many other contexts.

Strauss finally had Oppenheimer exactly where he wanted him. Yet Oppie seems to have reacted calmly to the news, politely asking all the right questions, trying to explore his options. Thirty-five minutes after entering Strauss’ office, Oppenheimer rose to leave, telling Strauss that he was going to consult with Herb Marks. Strauss offered him the use of his chauffeur-driven Cadillac and Oppenheimer—distraught (outward appearances to the contrary)—foolishly accepted. But instead of going to Marks’ office, he directed the driver to the law offices of Joe Volpe, the former counsel to the AEC who together with Marks had given him legal advice during the Weinberg trial. Soon afterwards, Marks joined them and the three men spent an hour weighing Robert’s options. A hidden microphone recorded their deliberations. Anticipating that Oppenheimer would consult with Volpe, and unconcerned about violating the legal sanctity of client-lawyer privilege, Strauss had arranged in advance for Volpe’s office to be bugged.20 The hidden microphones in Volpe’s office allowed Strauss, through the transcripts provided to him, to monitor the discussion as to whether Oppenheimer ought to terminate his consulting contract or fight the charges in a formal hearing. Oppie was clearly undecided and anguished. Late that afternoon, Anne Wilson Marks came by and drove her husband and Robert back to their Georgetown home. On the way, Oppenheimer said, “I can’t believe what is happening to me.” That evening, Robert took the train back to Princeton to consult with Kitty.

sighed. “I can’t say that you weren’t expected.” “I’m just going to be walking around here and taking some measurements. It says here… you own eighty acres? That is one of the most gorgeous mansions I have ever seen,” he rambled on. “It must have cost you millions. I could never afford such a beauty. Well, heck, for that matter I couldn’t afford the millions of dollars in taxes a house like this would assess, let alone such a pricey property. Do you have an accountant?” Zo opened her mouth to respond, but he continued, “For an estate this size, I would definitely have one.” “I do have an accountant,” she cut in, with frustration. “Furthermore, I have invested a lot of money bringing this mansion up to speed. You can see my investment is great.” “Of course, it would be. The fact of the matter is, Mrs. Kane, a lot of people are in over their heads in property. You still have to pay up, or we take the place. Well, I’ll get busy now. Pay no mind to me.” He walked on, taking notes. “Clairrrrre!” Zo called as soon as she entered the house. “Bring your cell phone!” Two worry-filled months went by and many calls were made to lawyers, before Zoey finally picked one that made her feel confident. And then the letter came with the totals and the due date. “There is no way we can pay this, Mom, even if we sold off some of our treasures, because a lot of them are contracted to museums anyway. I am feeling awfully poor all of a sudden, and insecure.” “Yes, and I did some research, thinking I’d be forced to sell. It’s unlikely that anyone else around here can afford this place. It looks like they are going to get it all; they aren’t just charging for this year. What we have here is a value about equal to a little country. And all the new construction sites for housing developments suddenly popping up on this side of the river, does not help. Value is going up.” Zo put her head in her hands. “Ohhh, oh, oh, oh!” “Yeah, bring out the ice-cream and cake. I need comforting,” sighed Claire. The cell phone rang. “Yes, tonight? You guys have become pretty good to us, haven’t you?! You know, Bob, Mom and I thought we were just going to pig out on ice cream and cake. We found out we are losing this estate and are going to be poor again and we are bummed out.” There was a long pause. “No, that’s okay, I understand. Yeah, okay, bye.” “Well?” Zo ask dryly. “He was appropriately sorry, and he got off the phone fast, saying he remembered he had other business to take care of. Do you want to cry? I do…” “I’ll get the cake and dish the ice cream. You make our tea and we’ll cry together.” A pitter patter began to drum on the window. “Rain again. It seems softer though, dear.” “I thought you said this was going to be a softer rain!” It started to pour. “At least this is not a thunder storm… What was that?” “Thunder,” replied Claire, unmoved and resigned. An hour had gone by when there was a rapping at the door. “People rarely use the doorbell, ever notice that?” Zo asked on the way to the door. She opened it to reveal two wet guys holding a pizza, salad, soft drink, and giant chocolate chip cookies in a plastic container. In a plastic

Was this luck, or was it more than that? Proving skill is difficult in venture investing because, as we have seen, it hinges on subjective judgment calls rather than objective or quantifiable metrics. If a distressed-debt hedge fund hires analysts and lawyers to scrutinize a bankrupt firm, it can learn precisely which bond is backed by which piece of collateral, and it can foresee how the bankruptcy judge is likely to rule; its profits are not lucky. Likewise, if an algorithmic hedge fund hires astrophysicists to look for patterns in markets, it may discover statistical signals that are reliably profitable. But when Perkins backed Tandem and Genentech, or when Valentine backed Atari, they could not muster the same certainty. They were investing in human founders with human combinations of brilliance and weakness. They were dealing with products and manufacturing processes that were untested and complex; they faced competitors whose behaviors could not be forecast; they were investing over long horizons. In consequence, quantifiable risks were multiplied by unquantifiable uncertainties; there were known unknowns and unknown unknowns; the bracing unpredictability of life could not be masked by neat financial models. Of course, in this environment, luck played its part. Kleiner Perkins lost money on six of the fourteen investments in its first fund. Its methods were not as fail-safe as Tandem’s computers. But Perkins and Valentine were not merely lucky. Just as Arthur Rock embraced methods and attitudes that put him ahead of ARD and the Small Business Investment Companies in the 1960s, so the leading figures of the 1970s had an edge over their competitors. Perkins and Valentine had been managers at leading Valley companies; they knew how to be hands-on; and their contributions to the success of their portfolio companies were obvious. It was Perkins who brought in the early consultants to eliminate the white-hot risks at Tandem, and Perkins who pressed Swanson to contract Genentech’s research out to existing laboratories. Similarly, it was Valentine who drove Atari to focus on Home Pong and to ally itself with Sears, and Valentine who arranged for Warner Communications to buy the company. Early risk elimination plus stage-by-stage financing worked wonders for all three companies. Skeptical observers have sometimes asked whether venture capitalists create innovation or whether they merely show up for it. In the case of Don Valentine and Tom Perkins, there was not much passive showing up. By force of character and intellect, they stamped their will on their portfolio companies.

5:3 Do Not Wither within Your Area of Expertise ... But the lawyer must not allow the client to make a decision that the lawyer believes is wrong without a forceful and effective presentation by the lawyer of his or her position on the subject. When the matter is within the sphere of the lawyer's expertise, the lawyer must not permit the fear of being wrong to devour the lawyer's obligation to urge a course of action which the lawyer believes to be the best." (p.58)

Kana and Co is a highly reputable and ethical law firm in Singapore which offers comprehensive range of legal solutions for general legal matters to highly complex legal matters. The law firm specialises in civil & criminal litigation and all forms of contract legal matters. The law firm also specialises in complex debt recovery for Singapore and overseas investors.

During the primaries, conservative website The Washington Free Beacon commissioned Fusion to investigate Trump. The Washington Free Beacon was backed by one of Trump’s wealthy opponents, Paul Singer, a New York hedge fund billionaire and Republican donor. Singer dropped out after Trump became the presumptive nominee. Senior Democrats seeking to elect Hillary took over the Trump contract. The new client was the Democratic National Committee. A lawyer working for Hillary’s campaign, Marc E. Elias, retained Fusion and received its reports.

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May 15–16: Marilyn arrives punctually and works through the customary starts and stops of production without complaint. She watches the rushes and realizes that she is “sensational”—to employ the word the film’s editor, David Bretherton, uses when she asks him about her performance and appearance. But she angers Cukor, who learns of her criticisms of his shooting style. Marilyn’s lawyers are notified they will receive a letter from Fox stating that she will be in breach of her contract if she attends the birthday gala for President Kennedy.

After he returned to London, we talked on the phone almost every day, and he got busy tinkering with the software. After I took a look at the finished version, I agreed to take the tracking system off his hands for $30,000. I sat down and wrote a simple agreement in which I outlined the general terms and conditions. I am not a lawyer, of course, but I thought I’d done a pretty good job of writing my first contract. And the way I did it was simplicity itself. I went online and did my homework. I looked at dozens of sample contracts, to try to get a handle on the way these things were written, and found everything I needed on the Web. (It’s even easier today; you can get a variety of contracts from various sites, at no charge.) The agreement stipulated that I would pay him in ninety days, once I had tested the program, but I already knew that it was working fine. The fact is, I needed those ninety days to generate enough income to pay him—though he didn’t need to know that. I also told him that if things worked out, I might want to hire him to run the software for me, on a month-to-month basis, when the company was up and running, and I mentioned the possibility of paying him $10,000 a month. I know that sounds like a huge number, and it was certainly a huge number to me, but I had been looking closely at my competition and at the staggering amounts of money that were being generated, and I knew that all I needed was one little deal to get my business off the ground.

Ambiguity is the contract lawyer’s enemy. Any

Which lawyer drafts the contract is often dictated by custom: financing agreements are drafted by lenders’ counsel; acquisition agreements are drafted by purchaser’s counsel; underwriting agreements are drafted by underwriter’s counsel; employment contracts are drafted by employers’ counsel; security agreements are drafted by secured party’s counsel. The underlying principle is that the party with the most leverage or with the most to lose from an inadequately drafted contract will do the drafting.

It is true that too much legal writing is obfuscatory, wordy, dense and stilted. Many lawyers seem to believe that sounding like a lawyer is as important as the subject matter being communicated. A frequent result is that the effectiveness of the communication suffers.

Written rules, produced by a government as laws, or produced by private parties as contracts or other rules, are best understood as a specification about how people will behave in the future, or at least about the consequences of certain behavior in the future.

The default outcome is the outcome supplied by generally applicable law unless the contract provides otherwise.

The pragmatic Chinese adage, “same bed, different dreams,” is aptly applied to the making of contracts or law by multiple authors.

I had dinner one night with Roger, who said that he would settle for being released from Steve’s contract. Unfortunately, Steve was a significant part of our enterprise and I think we felt that we were bound together, perhaps more than necessary. Part of the problem was that nothing was written down. There was a verbal agreement – just as binding as a written one, so the lawyers tell us – between Steve and the band, which meant that any actions by one individual had to be ratified by the rest of us. Discussions were muddied by a lack of understanding, certainly by me, of what the implications really were – as a result the issues remained unclear and any trust uncertain. In retrospect, we should have settled with Roger then and there.

the fewer discussions among the lawyers on this particular topic a client hears, the better. Notwithstanding the important substantive result that is at stake, the typical client, perhaps not understanding the issue, may view it as a ridiculous (and costly) legal cul-de-sac.)

Ambiguity is the contract lawyer’s enemy.

Laws (and contracts) are prepared in advance to control later behavior. Legislation is the mechanism by which societies agree in advance about what to do to prevent or affect specified behavior.

The important point here is the temporal one. Laws (and contracts) are prepared in advance to control later behavior

As I have stressed repeatedly, the law, like other rules, is by its nature incomplete. Within the legal system, we use the mechanism of interpretation, often carried out by courts, to complete it in particular cases—to determine how to apply it to particular cases. In order to apply the law consistently, it must be interpreted consistently. Incompleteness is a problem not just of statutes and contracts, but also of the common law. Indeed, we can understand the common law as a mechanism for incremental decentralized completion of incomplete legal rules.

Defense companies spent less money on research and development and more on armies of lawyers, lobbyists, accountants, and consultants to help them comply with the Pentagon's growing acquisition bureaucracy and win more of the shrinking number of contracts.

With the Smithfield settlement agreed to in 2005, Miller passed a kind of shadow legislation, enacting the strongest protections for contract farmers passed anywhere in the United States. The settlement required that Smithfield allow its contract farmers to organize in any kind of association they wished, a right that had eluded Tyson’s contract farmers in the South for decades.5 The settlement also required that Smithfield allow its farmers to become “whistleblowers,” taking concerns they had about the company to regulators or the media without fear of retaliation. The settlement made it all but impossible for Smithfield to keep its contracts confidential. Farmers could discuss and share the documents with lawyers or regulators. The wall of secrecy around contract farming in Iowa was torn down. In Arkansas, by contrast, farmers still aren’t even allowed to share the settlement sheets Tyson mails them to outline their performance in the tournament system. All documents are stamped “Confidential.

Conan O'Brien doesn’t have it,' the NBC lawyers assured Jeff Gaspin, Entertainment Chairman (at NBC Universal). 'Conan was guaranteed The Tonight Show. He was not guaranteed that it would start at 11:35 p.m'.

Gene Carson owns Maverick Feeders, LLC, outside of Dodge City, the feedlot where the cowboys Antonio, Christian, and Cachu were riding their circular cattle drive. There is something odious about the very word “contract” to a cattleman like Carson. He got into the business decades ago, straight out of college, and the first lesson he learned was that a cattle buyer’s word is his bond. A cattle trade is built on ethics, not contracts. Contracts were for lawyers, and lawyers were for city slickers.

Tom Miller and Eric Tabor felt they needed to do something bigger. A lawsuit wasn’t enough. In September 2000, Miller unveiled a new law called the Producer Protection Act. It was by far the most stringent law ever proposed to constrain the power of companies like Tyson and Smithfield. The act banned companies from making their contracts with farmers confidential. Miller wanted to post the contracts on his website, creating a transparent market for the rules of production. The act also banned companies from retaliating against farmers who complained or tried to join an organization like a growers’ union. It protected farmers who talked back, in other words. The act also gave farmers the right to cancel any contract within three days of signing it, giving a lawyer plenty of time to look over the terms.

We need to sort out our contract before I let you get away with any more of this.” My eyes spring open. “Contract? You really know how to kill a mood, don’t you.” “I am a lawyer, after all.” “At least I offer mercy by making you a coffee first.

March 14: Fox sends three checks to Marilyn for weeks worked prior to her suspension, but her lawyers, not wishing to recognize the validity of the studio contract, send the money back.

The March 26, 1979 Agreement between Israel and America states in quite simple, easily understood terms that if Israel’s “security” is “threaten(ed),” including “an armed attack against Israel” that the United States “on an urgent basis” will “be responsive to military and economic assistance requirements of Israel.” That’s not very subtle diplomatic language for ‘if you are invaded militarily, we’ll respond militarily.’ Frankly, it might have been better from a Genesis 12:3 perspective (“I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you”) if the 1979 military defense agreement with Israel had been 202 pages, with multiple sub-parts, and several whereas clauses, instead of two pages which can’t be easily misinterpreted. Any lawyer will tell you that the most difficult contract to defeat by finding a ‘loophole’ is a contract that is short, simple, and straight forward. That’s exactly what America signed with Israel about thirty years ago.

Drinks DUI expert group to help guide However, the best men s and women s drunken food you like it petty crimes, other traffic violations on the wrong goal that seems to be the direction. If you see that the light sentences and fines to get website traffic is violated, the citizen towards crime. When under the influence of a great interest behind the violation was due to more significant impact. Prison term effects were stuck down the back of people who are well, these licenses is likely that you want to deal with nutrition break and automated attacks can be, that s why. Yes it is expensive insurance, and other options in the outcome of the order of DUI, in everyday life, it affects people and the need to process, I love you. An experienced legal drunk driving charges, and it was presented to a lawyer immediately after the contract has announced that although his own. You are trying to remember the legal rights towards the maximum is very cool, you must be straight. The alternative thinking in any direction, does not encourage conservation officials as a record on suspicion of drunken driving after turning self, yourself simplest explanation, it may be possible to do so until is. His car really only answer whether the director should start by asking, encourages statement. A judgment is impaired, you probably have a file, you can use your account to say that the elements can get. When he finished, completely, their legal rights, and in a quiet warehouse to check their own direction and I will speak, and the optimal route is being used against itself. Most use a positive direction, you might think it accuses because your self, and also to examine the consequences of drinking have been able to rule out the presence of blood. Of course, as long as you do not accept the claims are by drinking in the area, they are deprived of a lawyer. Additional measures will not fix it claims that his lawyer, the Czech-out you can. Therefore, it is also within the laws of their country to be aware of your car. Owned independent certification system will be canceled. It can record their own and as an alternative to the paper license, driving license, was arrested for drunken driving, the licensee, are confiscated in accordance with the direction. License, for how long, but canceling function is based on the severity of their crime. But even apart from some a license, you completely lose its supply is proposed well motivated are not sure. Your sins, so not only is it important for your car can pass only confiscated. DUI price of any of the reception towards obtaining a driving license, DMV hearing is removed again, but the case was registered, although this aspect of themselves independently as a condition of. The court file, however, take care of yourself, as well as independent experts was chosen to listen to their constitution.

Rose pointed out their contract with Aiyliria only covered their world. Dragon lawyer talked to Elven lawyer and eventually a Dwarven banker got involved, but in the end Rose got the rights to publish the books on Earth and still had a bit of hoard left over.

Instead, they were obtuse, they were utterly indifferent to the fact that I was putting every cent I had and all I could borrow into this project. When we sat down with our lawyers in attendance, the brothers acknowledged the problems but refused to write a single letter that would permit me to make changes. “We have told you by telephone that you may go ahead and alter the plans as we discussed,” said their attorney, Frank Cotter. “But the contract calls for a registered letter. If Mr. Kroc does not have that, he is put in jeopardy,” said my counsel. “That’s your problem.” It was almost as though they were hoping I would fail. This was a peculiar attitude for them to take because the more successful the franchising, the more money they would make. My attorney gave up on the situation.

The biggest mistake David and I made through our entire building process was the fact that with both builders we didn’t have our lawyer look at any of the contracts. 

Here’s the deal.” She sat on the bed next to me and grabbed my hand, cradling it in her own. Let me repeat that. Sienna Diaz—movie star, hilarious comedian, and all-round extraordinary human being—sat on the bed next to me and grabbed my hand. And it was not an hallucination. Life is so weird. “I am obsessed with your lemon custardcakes,” she confessed on a rush. “Obsessed. But your bakery hasn’t been carrying them for over a week.” “Oh, sorry about that.” She shook her head quickly. “Don’t apologize. Here’s the deal: if and when you’re feeling up to it, I want to pay you—handsomely—to keep me well stocked in lemon custard cakes for the next six months. And maybe for the rest of my life. And my children’s lives.” I cracked a smile because the woman was funny. “You don’t have to pay me. I’ll be happy to do it for you.” She shook her head. “No. No, no, no. I’m paying you. You’re being put on retainer. I’ll have my lawyer draw up a contract. We’re making this official, because I need those cakes, and I want to be able to hold you accountable in a court of law if you don’t deliver.

I often get asked these questions from young people who are considering going to law school: “Do you use your law degree in what you do? Has it helped you?” These are difficult questions to answer succinctly. It’s impossible for me to say that it doesn’t play into my day-to-day activities because law school and briefly practicing law rewired my brain. I’m more structured and detail-oriented than I would have been. Having gone to law school years ago still impacts my job performance every day. Plus, people tended to accord me some professional respect in my twenties in part because I had a high-value graduate degree. It would be disingenuous not to acknowledge the impact it’s had. On the other hand, it’s not as if I’m editing contracts or figuring out if something is legal on a regular basis. If I were to come across a genuine legal issue I’d call a lawyer who specializes in that sort of thing or look it up online like anyone else. Legal training (and the subsequent indebtedness) would not be my first suggestion to a young person looking to do something enterprising.* I felt I had to unlearn a lot as I embarked down a very different road.

For example, by aggregating search data, we might be able to find out what legal issues and concerns are troubling particular communities; by analysing databases of decisions by judges and regulators, we may be able to predict outcomes in entirely novel ways; and by collecting huge bodies of commercial contracts and exchanges of emails, we might gain insight into the greatest legal risks that specific sectors face.

McReynolds emphatically shook his head. “No way. Legal’s all over that deal. It’s squeaky clean. Even the woman signed off. Trammel. I could make her a three-hundred-pound whore who likes black dick in the movie and she couldn’t do a thing about it. That deal is perfect.” “Yeah, well, what Legal’s missed is the part about neither one of them having the rights to the story to sell you in the first place. Those rights happen to reside here with me. Trammel signed them over to me before Dahl came along and took second position. He thought he could move up one by stealing the original contracts out of my files. Only that’s not going to work. I’ve got a witness to the theft and Dahl’s fingerprints. He’s going to go down on fraud and theft charges and your choice here is to decide whether you want to go down

She nodded. Prescott & Talbott had dealt with the trying economic times by creating a caste system of lawyers. Contract attorneys—deemed unfit for true employment on the basis of academic achievement or social standing—were brought in to staff the largest of the document reviews and paid an insulting hourly rate for their efforts. Not only would they miss out on the prestige of partnership, but the salaries they earned wouldn’t make a dent in the tens (or, more likely, hundreds) of thousands of dollars of law school loans they’d accumulated.

Step By Step Guide To Finding A Good Roofing Contractor The local roofing repair contractor you choose should always have a great reputation in the community and a track record of exceptional customer service. When you can't be on site, you need to know that your service provider is doing an excellent job. You also need to be sure that old-fashioned craftsmanship and quality materials are part of the roofing repair contractor's vision for his work. The following are methods to make sure that you hire the right roofing repair contractor. A reliable roofing repair contractor will make an effort to bring you the highest quality results. Well-regarded roofing repair contractors preserve their good reputations by always keeping their promises. Give your roofing repair contractor an appropriate timeline and do not interrupt his work unnecessarily. Discover how the contractual worker arrangements to handle any obligation issues. Once you start seeing bids, do not make the mistake of assuming that a low bid will lead to a similarly low work performance. Check the cost of the needed materials and compare them to the pricing of the low bid. In addition, it's important to think about all the labor costs. Construct a legal contract only when you have determined the price is within reason. Often when you are searching for a local roofing repair contractor with a great reputation and who will provide the very best work, this is usually one of the busier people in his field. If your local roofing repair contractor has a reputation for doing a great job, be prepared to wait to engage his services. There is a downside to roofing repair contractors who are in high demand as they might not be able to focus entirely on your project. The most vital thing in finding a local roofing repair contractor is to trust your instincts. Every time a roofing expert comes to you with a legal contract that requires your signature, read the legal agreement to really ensure all of your requests are present in the legal agreement and the roofing expert recognizes them. If you're taking the time to ensure the legal agreement has everything you and your service provider had agreed on and is put in clear terms, it'll save you much stress and money down the road. Ensure you have posed all questions and concerns to your service provider prior to signing an agreement. If there are any terms or conditions you do not understand, give the legal agreement to a lawyer for clarification. Roofing contractors with excellent reputations consider it good business practice to provide each client with a written quote before starting work on any job. If the info is needed, pronto, your roofing repair contractor might be willing to provide you with a quote over the phone. Inspect the schedule and qualifications of the roofing repair contractor to effectively ensure that the project will be finished exactly how and when you would like it and within your financial requirements. Make sure to ask any questions and address all concerns to your satisfaction before you employee a roofing repair contractor

French Enlightenment philosophers liked to use slavery as a symbol of human oppression, and particularly political oppression. “Man is born free but is everywhere in chains,” wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract in 1762. A generation of crusading lawyers put Enlightenment principles into action by helping slaves sue for the right to be treated as ordinary French subjects.

Ground rules.” “Ah, yes. Rules. Like eight simple rules for fucking my hot derby girl.” “Keep that up and rule number one will be Not Happening.” “Sorry. I’ll be good. Promise. What do you propose? Should I get my lawyer to draw us up a contract, a la Fifty Shades?” He cups his hand around his mouth, whispering as if the squirrels are going to overhear him. “You’re ridiculous. How about we keep it simple? I’m afraid your brain will explode if I try to stuff more information in that clearly overloaded grey matter.” “Do you think I’m some kind of dumb jock just because I’m pretty?” “No. You just already seem to have a plethora of thoughts spilling from your mouth constantly, so I figure you don’t need me to add the burden.

Um, I’m sorry. The contract I signed said I would be provided with a sugar momma. Do I need to look over it again? Because if not, I will need to hire a new lawyer and find out how it can be broken.” “Seems like you are out of luck. That contract is ironclad. The Crown only employs the best lawyers.

every love relationship rests on an unwritten agreement unthinkingly concluded by the lovers in the first weeks of their love. They are still in a kind of dream but at the same time, without knowing it, are drawing up, like uncompromising lawyers, the detailed clauses of their contract.

Claudia A Barber, a distinguished legal practitioner based in Laurel, MD, and Washington, DC, brings over 35 years of expertise in real estate, government contracts, and administrative law. Leading a prominent law firm specializing in real estate transactions and government contracts, Claudia excels in management and community service, advocating for churches and their members. She was named 2024 Lawyer of Distinction. In 2024, she authored “How to Survive Protracted Civil Litigation When the Judicial System STOPPED Being Fair and Impartial.” This book quickly became the top seller in Justice on Amazon in July 2024

Now she looks like a hapless stay-at-home mother, which is what she is, rather than the competent, respected, well-paid contract lawyer she previously was, and will be again, very soon, once her children start school, which people assure her will happen in the “blink of an eye.” The days are long but the years are short, her mother says. This will apparently make sense to her one day.

Huey the helicopter Huey was testing the “Jesus nut” on his Huey chopper—the nut that holds the rotor on or else one meets Jesus—when outside his hanger there came a thundering roar as only Blackhawk helicopters make.

the lawyers read that Domenico and I, upon agreement, would take lovers, but would be discreet—yes, that was a clause in the fucking contract—and Domenico’s face hardened while he said, “No one touches my wife but me,” I didn’t bother disagreeing or asking for the same exclusive rights to him.

Choice of profession also no longer guarantees a high social status. This is bound up, among other things, with fragmented processes of downward mobility within occupational groups. A senior teacher earns a relatively comfortable income and need not worry about the future; they may even be able to retire early. In the same school and in the same class, however, there is possibly also a younger teacher on a temporary contract who has to claim unemployment benefit during the summer vacation and has no prospects for permanent employment. (Many German states now rely on a growing number of flexible teachers who are no longer guaranteed permanent positions.) In the postal service, too, although there are still many permanent employees, newly hired staff generally are not offered any job security (cf. Chapter 5). Among certain occupational groups the differences can be tremendous, as with journalists, for example. Those who began working at major German publications like Stern, Spiegel or Die Zeit ten or twenty years ago could expect a secure future. In the big publishing houses today, on the other hand, not only have precarious jobs and poorly paid groups of online writers proliferated, but not even the established staff can feel secure any more. A growing share belong to the ‘media precariat’ and earn less than €30,000 per year.99 Another example is that of lawyers, formerly the very model of status and prosperity. This professional group now divides into those who continue to earn good money and enjoy a high social prestige while employed in large offices or working for corporations, and a growing flock of precarious self-employed legal professionals, who fail to gain a steady footing in an over-filled market.

Trade secret law protects information that is not generally known, has economic value because it is secret, and the business takes reasonable steps to keep secret. This protection applies even if there is a contract.

Remember there are three big buckets of liability associated with a contract - direct damages, indirect or consequential damages, and other liability that isn't a damage. This last category includes indemnification and some warranty claims.

Don't worry, I forwarded the contract to my family lawyer already. She can tell me if there's anything suspicious about the legal stuff." Laura nodded, mollified that Anja was making sure not to be taken advantage of. Anja was not paranoid about being taken advantage of like Laura was, but she was paranoid about being judged by Laura.

Long ago, lawyers realized that they could make themselves culturally essential if they made the vernacular of contracts too complex for anyone to understand except themselves. They made the language of contracts unreadable on purpose.

I am a lawyer, Noah. That’s just not a real rationale. Half our political reporting wouldn’t be possible if we refused to talk to sources who were breaching contracts.

Kippering grunted. “Well, being a lawyer is not all that and a pot of porridge. Many times I’ve had to stand and watch justice-call it fair play, in the world of business schemes and contracts-be subverted due to a lying tongue or a bag of dirty money. No matter how highly you begin, such things have a way of chewing your lofty ideals down to the size of rum bottles and any warm female body you can afford, so please don’t begrudge my choice of exquisite brainwash.

Judge Soper, her eyes on Richard and his attorneys, told the packed courtroom that she’d given a lot of thought to letting the Hernandezes become Richard’s counsel. She was concerned that a contract assigning book and movie rights to the Hernandezes in lieu of payment would violate Richard’s rights, for a story that ended in acquittal would be less valuable than one that ended with a guilty verdict. But the defendant, she pointed out, had refused to see lawyer Victor Chavez, whom she had sent to the jail to explain to Richard his rights after he’d reviewed the contract. Nevertheless, she said, the assignment was legal under California law, and the defendant, according to the Constitution, could choose his own counsel. Judge Soper had decided to reverse herself and allow the Hernandezes to represent Richard. The Hernandezes smiled at one another and shook hands. Halpin shook his head in utter disbelief and disgust.

Rich Nichols, another attorney, was there in Rochester, too. He had already been in contact with the players as far back as late 2012 through Hope Solo, who was frustrated with the team’s hesitance to take a stronger stance against U.S. Soccer. Solo didn’t know Nichols when she called him for the first time. She believed the national team needed a stronger voice in negotiations, and after asking around, she eventually got Nichols’s name. His highest-profile experience in sports came from representing Olympic track star Marion Jones in doping allegations and serving as general counsel for the American Basketball League, a women’s league that preceded the WNBA. Nichols’s expertise isn’t quite as a trial lawyer, but he speaks with the cadence and tempo of one, knowing which words to emphasize and where to pause for effect. As the players of the national team were debating how to move forward in contract negotiations, Solo called Nichols on her own to see if he could help. Their first conversation centered largely around the idea that the women should demand the same pay as the men’s national team. Nichols and Solo felt a philosophical connection right away. Both outspoken and unafraid to ruffle feathers, they had the same ideas about the tack the national team needed to take.

Why does your girlfriend hate this place so much?” Fury kept her attention on the shadows between the stalls, the vendors and shoppers. “Her brother was a fighter here.” Hunt started. “Does Bryce know?” Fury nodded shallowly. “He was talented—Julius. The Viper Queen recruited him from his training gym, promised him riches, females, everything he wanted if he signed himself into her employ. What he got was an addiction to her venom, putting him in her thrall, and a contract with no way out.” A muscle ticked in Fury’s jaw. “June’s parents tried everything to get him freed. Everything. Lawyers, money, pleas to Micah for intervention—none of it worked. Julius died in a fight ten years ago. June and her parents only learned about it because the Viper Queen’s goons dumped his body on their doorstep with a note that said Memento Mori on it.

To Aristotle, friends “are disposed toward each other as they are disposed to themselves: a friend is another self.” … Your brain is like a clever lawyer, twisting the words in Darwin’s contract. Selfishness can actually be altruism— if I believe that you are me.

When you’re in any kind of negotiation that includes legal, you always need to work out the fundamental deal points first, before the lawyers get called in—how much you’re paying for something, how much you’re willing to spend, how long a contract should last for, exclusivity, etc. Get the term sheet roughly approved, then let the lawyers argue the legalese. Otherwise negotiations can drag on forever, with you footing the bill as your lawyers fight with their lawyers. Nobody wants to deal with that.

Some people are addicted to wedding cakes and divorces.

Marcus is reading a 256-page contract between the Every and a supplier of cobalt. This has been read by a number of company attorneys and outside consultants, but the attorneys miss a lot. Given the proliferation of auto-fill and AI in the legal profession, lawyers no longer know how to write. Some ninety percent of contract boilerplate is now generated by algos and AI, with only minor human intervention or augmentation. This can lead to ghastly problems.

The important point here is the temporal one. Laws (and contracts) are prepared in advance to control later behavior. Legislation is the mechanism by which societies agree in advance about what to do to prevent or affect specified behavior.

There is no substitute for due diligence. To this day, my father reads every lease our firm enters into. Before any building acquisition, every single lease must be reviewed. Yes, there are lawyers involved and that is technically their job, but he believes—and I do, too—that there is nothing like knowing the full story of a property, right down to the basic maintenance contracts.

Derek’s astonished. “You were trying to get people angry at me?” “This happen because we on your account,” says Marco. “Not happen if we have own accounts, like Voyl.” Now he understands. The digients have been hearing about a Sophonce digient named Voyl. Voyl’s owner—a lawyer named Gerald Hecht—filed papers to create the Voyl Corporation, and Voyl now runs under a separate Data Earth account registered to that corporation. Voyl pays taxes and is able to own property, enter into contracts, file lawsuits, and be sued; in many respects he is a legal person, albeit one for whom Hecht technically serves as director.

I, Lisa K Friedman, being of sound mind and broken foot, served him with a mock complaint: breach of the marriage contract. New York Times, Modern Love

While whites were still the majority, they established preferences for blacks and Hispanics that took such deep root that Congress and state legislatures have been powerless to abolish them. These programs would provoke outrage if they were practiced in favor of whites, but they have been partially curbed only by state ballot initiatives and equivocal Supreme Court decisions. Demography would change this. In 2006, the state of Michigan voted to abolish racial preferences in college admissions and state contracting, but the measure passed only because whites were still a majority. Eighty-five percent of blacks and 69 percent of Hispanics voted to maintain racial preferences for themselves. When they have a voting majority nothing will prevent non-whites from reestablishing and extending preferences. Are there portents in the actions of Eric Holder, the first black attorney general, appointed by the first black president? J. Christian Adams, a white Justice Department lawyer resigned in protest when the department dropped a case of voter intimidation the previous administration had already won by default against the New Black Panther Party. In this 2008 case, fatigue-clad blacks waved billy clubs at white voters and yelled such things as “You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!” Mr. Adams called it “the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career.” He believed the decision to dismiss the case reflected hostility to the rights of whites. He said some of his colleagues called selective prosecution “payback time,” adding that “citizens would be shocked to learn about the open and pervasive hostility within the Justice Department to bringing civil rights cases against nonwhite defendants on behalf of white victims.” Christopher Coates, who was the head of the voting section of the Civil Rights Division, agreed with this assessment. In sworn testimony before Congress, he called the dismissal of the Black Panthers case a “travesty of justice” and described a “hostile atmosphere” against “race-neutral enforcement” of the Voting Rights Act. He said the department had a “deep-seated opposition to the equal enforcement of the Voting Rights Act against racial minorities and for the protection of white voters who have been discriminated against.” How will the department behave when whites become a minority?

For this reason, a lawyer reading a contract skips the miscellaneous provisions at her and her client’s risk; sometimes important items are buried there.

The first task of a lawyer in the review of a contract is to ensure that he has the correct contract, and the most current version. It is surprising how often there are missteps at this stage.

A piece of paper is not an eraser or a bottle of correction fluid. It may legally negate the “contract” between two parties, as a lawyer might put it. But it cannot expunge the memories, the traditions, the patterns that spring up between a couple, no matter how good or bad the state of their relationship.

You can get married for a few hundred dollars and divorced for the bulk of your assets.

Every single employee at WWE—from the stagehands to the lawyer who presented my contract—was ripped. There was a wrestler back in the day named I.R.S., and I’m now convinced he was just their actual accountant.