the Zealous

Contract drafting guru Ken Adams has a non-disclosure agreement template that is (in Ken's words) "way better than anything else out there. And I wager it’s way better than anything a company could create on their own or have a law firm create."
 
Ken explains the steps needed to purchase this – a process Ken describes as "custom-commodity drafting":

If you haven't checked out the TV series Goliath (Amazon Prime), you're missing out. Billy Bob Thornton plays Billy McBride, a badass but disgraced trial lawyer excommunicated from the massive firm that he founded. The show is about how Billy plots his attempt at redemption and revenge.

There's a scene in which Billy is prepping a deponent, his own witness, and conveys his five rules for depositions (full transcript):

But look, a deposition's not rocket science. There's a way to deal with them. You know? There's really five simple rules.

When they ask you a question, if you don't understand it, just ask them to repeat it. All right.

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A surprising number of agreements negotiated by the most sophisticated counsel in the transactional bar contain ambiguous terms simply because the use of such terms is considered market. ....
 
This is not necessarily because deal lawyers do not understand that they are doing this: many times deal dynamics simply do not permit the correction of these ambiguities. But there are other less appealing theories explaining the "herd" mentality of many within the transactional bar, as well as the resulting tendency of many transactional lawyers to become document processors rather than contract draftpersons.

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