Secrets of Productive Contracts
By Verity White
5/5
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About this ebook
What does a productive contract look like?
After years of testing different contracting techniques and many contract negotiations and disputes, it's clear the best contracts look like a Reverse Sandwich. Important stuff on the outside, general stuff on the inside.
This book comes with for partner resources such as legal templates, checklists and other tools, head to https://www.checklistlegal.com/productive-contracts
A Reverse Sandwich Contract is a contract that is ridiculously readable, lovely to look at, simple to use, fast to negotiate, and easy to automate. And of course, powerfully productive.
This book shows you how to write a contract that is useful and useable.
You want to get more done at work & in business. Pressure on your time keeps mounting every day and you find yourself dealing with repetitive issues, difficult negotiations and mind-numbing admin work. Productive contracts work for you, not against you.
In 'The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts', authors Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind talk about how the future will look for professionals, including lawyers. This book helps legal professionals learn how to survive the changes predicted by Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind.
If your business documents aren't optimised for electronic signatures and automation processes, your company will be left behind. If you want to do more with less, you need to increase your productivity. This book will help you increase your productivity & get your contracts working for you, not against you.
It took several years and many failed efforts to figure out the Secrets of Productive Contracts shared in this book. Hopefully, you will get value out of them far sooner in your business productivity journey.
This guide is written for:
new lawyers who want to know how to write a simple contract
paralegals & legal secretaries putting contracts together
solo lawyers at medium sized companies with limited resources
office administrators who want to move to a paperless office
procurement & contract managers keen to develop b customer experience
legal teams in process driven corporations where process efficiency is paramount and
anyone who deals with contracts and thinks 'There has to be a better way!?'.
What will you learn? Here's a little preview...
The big productivity secret - how to make a Reverse Sandwich Contract
How to think digitally about contracts, documents & processes
Where to find minions
How to delegate like Beyonce
Why a contract is not just a bit of paper
How to apply Triple 'O' Productivity to your contract document & your contract process
Obliterate the unnecessary
Optimise the important
Outsource to robots & humans
Verity White
Throughout Verity’s career, the one thing that stood out to her was the need to simplify the law and increase productivity to drive better business outcomes. She has worked in several key Australian telecommunications and technology companies of different sizes and structures over the past 7 years. Whatever a company's size, all want to do more with less. Getting things done accurately and quickly the first time is key. Verity saw a need for clear and simple contract structures; contracts that easily move through the contracting process and are optimised for electronic processes. She developed Reverse Sandwich Contracting as a low cost, simple technique geared toward filling this gap. Verity wrote Secrets to Productive Contracts to help young lawyers, paralegals and anyone who works with contracts. She hopes they get the benefits of more productive contracts without the trial and error she went through. The book is a step-by-step guide to develop forward thinking, digital contacts that are useful and useable for both lawyers and non-lawyers. We all need to be more productive. It’s time contracts got disrupted. Verity is a Director at the Communication Research Institute and Company Secretary with Melbourne social enterprise STREAT Ltd. Verity White is a practising lawyer. She currently works as a Legal Counsel at Australia’s largest telecommunications and technology provider, where she has fun in the Legal Innovation Forum and supports the team managing small-to-medium business customers. In the real world, you can often catch Verity at Start Up Grind Melbourne events, sitting back amazed by everyone’s cleverness or commuting (slowly) into work via bicycle. In the online world, catch her on Instagram or Twitter @checklistlegal. Also, check out the accompanying tools and resources available at the Checklist Legal website: checklistlegal.com/productive-contracts.
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Book preview
Secrets of Productive Contracts - Verity White
Table of Contents
Secrets of Productive Contracts
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Also By Verity White
About the Author
About the Publisher
Verity White
SECRETS OF PRODUCTIVE CONTRACTS
How to think digitally and write paperless contracts for a faster future
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Whatever a company's size, all want to do more with less. Getting things done accurately and quickly the first time is key. There's a need for clear and simple contract structures; contracts that easily move through the contracting process and are optimised for electronic processes. This book – and the Reverse Sandwich Contract method – is a low cost, simple technique geared toward filling this gap. Secrets of Productive Contracts was written to help young lawyers, paralegals and anyone who works with contracts. The author hopes they get the benefits of more productive contracts without the trial and error she went through.
This book is a guide to develop new ways of thinking about contracts as well as an overview to process of how to create forward-focused, digital contacts that are useful and useable for lawyers and non-lawyers.
PARTNER RESOURCES
This book comes with further digital resources. For templates, checklists, PDFs and more, head to www.checklistlegal.com/productive-contracts.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © Verity White 2017
All rights reserved. You may not reproduce or transmit a copy of this publication or the related resources in any form without the written consent of the author.
www.checklistlegal.com/productive-contracts
DISCLAIMER
I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer. This book is intended for general business purposes only, so please do not rely on it for tailored legal advice. Your situation may be different and the laws of other countries or jurisdictions may mean the information in this book is incorrect. Please use your common sense, and seek professional independent advice if you need it. For a list of free referral services for legal assistance in Australia, please see the Resources section at the end of the book.
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the undecided and the indecisive. It is possible to find your passion.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to these legends who gave love, time, and encouragement to make this book happen:
• Lauren Stephens
• Caitlin Whiteman
• Emily Booth
• Fofey White
• Allison Hooper
• Pia Chadwick
• Anne Fisk
• Ryan Hooper
• Lisa Chandler
• Peter Fisk
• Anthony McMahon
• Richard White
THE GUIDE TO SKIPPING AHEAD
We’re all here to be productive so I encourage skipping ahead! This matrix will also help for quick reference later if you are looking for a particular section or need a refresher.
THE BITS AT THE FRONT
MINDSET: READY FOR CHANGE
Do you ever think multiple thoughts, all at the same time?
• I feel sick!
• Maybe we could call it off?
• What if I miss something?
• I could lose thousands of dollars I get this wrong... hundreds of thousands...
• Is this guy trying to trick me?
• I don’t want to look stupid!
• The contract is so massive, I know I’ve missed something.
• Real estate agents are dodgy, I bet he’s slipped something in there.
• Is the property a dud? What if it falls to pieces!
• I feel so dumb with my little offer letter.
• Was I supposed to know he would bring the contract?
• Is this normal?
• I can’t believe he brought the contract for us to sign on the spot, I thought we would just make an offer!
All these thoughts rushed through my panicked mind when I walked into a ‘casual’ meeting with a real estate agent to ‘discuss’ making an offer on an apartment – my very first attempt at home buying. I struggled to understand the massive, two-inch-thick contract, I panicked, and I got frustrated. Even though I am a lawyer, paid to read contracts every day. Despite the fact I spent over three years studying law, had extensive practical legal experience as a paralegal and was practicing as a lawyer professionally for five or so years at the time, still I felt confused and bamboozled.
After this moment, I was struck with a sense of outrage and shock. What must legal transactions such as this feel like for people without years of training or a basic understanding of contract law? Looking back now, that stressful, chilly night in 2015 really pushed me to look at contracts and the law differently.
I teach contract law at Harvard Law School and I can't understand my credit card contract. I just can't. It's not designed to be read.
[1]
Elizabeth Warren
I had already worked hard to create contract efficiencies and was laying the foundation knowledge for the processes and ideas that now form the Secrets of Productive Contracts. However, something about this night and the feeling of helplessness and annoyance that lingered spurred me to think about contracts more broadly.
This book is the result of my own struggles with many complex commercial legalese battles and personal legal frustrations. There are at least two major moments in my personal life (so far, I am sure there will be more!) where I struggled to read a relatively everyday contract.
The first is the above situation, when I felt ambushed into signing a contract for the purchase of an apartment. The second was going through a ‘de facto divorce’, where I needed to divvy up the very same apartment in a legal way.
EVEN LAWYERS CAN’T READ CONTRACTS
As the earlier quote from Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren[2] shows, even the best, most experienced lawyers struggle with poorly written, large contracts. Does that make you feel better? It made me feel better when I first heard it. Similarly, when I heard Una Jagose speak at a plain language conference, she described the way she felt about plain language legal writing.
‘I’ve always been a bit inclined towards plain language, but for a long time, it made me think that it meant I wasn’t very smart.’[3] As the Solicitor General of New Zealand, empowered to make sure the government runs the country according to New Zealand law, it’s pretty clear Una Jagose is very smart. Her presentation echoed my own feelings that the smarter option is to simplify things.
I’ve always been a bit inclined towards plain language, but for a long time, it made me think that it meant I wasn’t very smart.
[4]
Una Jagose
I am excited to show you the Secrets of Productive Contracts and introduce you to Reverse Sandwich Contracts. Productive contracts are readable by humans. Easy to read contracts are easy to like. The easier your contract is to read, the more trustworthy you and your company seem.
This book will help you create contracts that everyone can read and understand and actually use. This book is peppered with examples of why simplicity will make you and your contracts more productive, giving you back your time, concentration and sanity.
The world is moving too fast for paper. If your business documents aren't optimised for electronic signatures and automated processes, your company will be left behind. If you want to do more with less, you need to increase your productivity. If you want to remove the drudgery from document creation, you have come to the right place. With these secrets, you can generate value so your contracts are always worth far more than the paper they are written on (or the hard drive they are saved on).
THIS BOOK ISN’T FOR EVERYONE
I don’t want you to waste your time (or complain to me!) if this book isn’t the right fit for you. It takes a special kind of person to try things differently. Lawyers are not known for being early adopters of new technology or innovation.
After attempting a lean law technology transformation project at a large US law firm, Stephen Poor