MAKE SENSE OF LEGALESE BEFORE YOU SIGN THAT CONTRACT

I have a client that would just about sign a bus ticket, if you shoved one under his nose and said - sign! The problem with this of course that we had all these signed contracts that he then didn't want to be a part of and he would then hand them to me to get him out of the contract! It got so bad, that I once said to him that if he ever signed anything again, without letting me have a look at what he was signing, I would have him institutionalized!

I, on the other hand - tend to go in the opposite direction. I won't sign anything unless my Contractual Attorney, Kerry Jack (www.cognosa.co.za) has had a look at it. Let's face it - very few of us understand the 'latin' bits and even fewer understand legalese.

When looking to draw up a contract, I always tell my clients to "write everything down that you want in the contract, in your own words, then get the lawyers to write it up into legalese".

Remember, every contract needs to have a beginning, middle and an end. What I mean by that is that 'How it starts' should be documented, 'how it works (and who does what)' should be documented and 'how it can end' should be documented - that way all the emotion is taken out of the event and you can get on with the business of life.

Make sense of legalese before you sign that contract
20 July 2007 at 11h00

People often sign contracts - business and employment - without understanding the obligations involved, and this can have devastating consequences. The law faculty at the University of Cape Town, recognising that the problem lies with legal language being a foreign language to most people, has stepped in to translate the mysteries of legal speak. The faculty will host an intensive three-day course, which will enable people to understand the legal process on which contracts are based. The course, titled "Understanding contracts for effective control and reading and writing legal language", is targeted at people working in sales, marketing, advertising, buying, tendering and recruitment.

The first two days of the course will cover the process of contracting, the arrangement of contents, common terms and conditions, provisions for resolving disputes and the consequences of breach. The course also looks at contracting by fax and via the Internet.

The third day will focus on the building blocks of legal language: the words, technical expressions, long sentences and complicated structures. Course presenter Terry Boxall, a practising commercial attorney, will provide practical assistance in the best ways of reading and writing legal language. Participants will examine a standard legal document to discover the various features that make up legal language. Through trial and error they will find successful ways of drafting a straightforward legal document, which is legally sound, clearly expressed and reflects the desired relationship between the parties.The course runs from August 22 to August 24 and the closing date for registration is Friday, August 17.

For more details e-mail Irèna Wasserfall at irena.wasserfall@ uct.ac.za or telephone her on 021 650 5621.