WHAT DO CONTRACT LAWYERS DO ANYWAY?

WHAT DO CONTRACT LAWYERS DO ANYWAY? A friend of mine who is a litigator once asked me— and he was completely serious— how contract lawyers could spend so much time on a large transaction. After all, he said, once you have worked out the deal, you should be almost done. Kids, you may have wondered as well. My answer to my friend was that the major provisions of an agreement address the most probable outcome and that much of the “paperwork” deals with less probable events with potential major consequences. For example, at the closing on a loan, before the “money moves”, there are documents exchanged which should protect against the possibility that the borrowing is unauthorized or the possibility that the people signing the document are not authorized to sign on behalf of the borrower. I would have said that the careful lawyers who insist on verifying those documents were protecting against extremely unlikely possibilities, but, lo and behold, this kind of fraud has happened again.

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2 Responses to WHAT DO CONTRACT LAWYERS DO ANYWAY?

  1. Annalisa says:

    So basically, contracts answer all the crazy “what if” questions that non-lawyers would dismiss as silly/unlikely possibilities? Lee can tell you that I love dealing in what ifs. Maybe I should’ve done law school after all!

  2. Pingback: THINKING LIKE A LAWYER: WHAT COULD GO WRONG? (COMMENT). | Pater Familias

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