Greetings! THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIALS HAVE RETURNED! Back when I was practicing law, I had a fun time dropping silly inconsequential phrases in the “boilerplate” of documents, to see if they came back in other firms’ forms when lifted without reading (they came back more than one would think). The best place for these little “cousins of mountweazels” was in the “force majeure” clause. Force majeure, for those who may not recall, are a large number of unlikely, uncontrollable events that, through no fault of a party, might delay that party’s performance. Storms, fires, and other acts of g-d are some of the more obvious. Adding “or other deity” is a nice addition. My favorite, though, was “extra-terrestrial event.” When a serious lawyer on the other side actually read all the boilerplate he observed, “I assume what you have in mind are meteor showers or asteroids.” I responded, “No, I’m talking about visitation.” I could practically hear across the phone line his pen taking notes on my clarification. No laughter. No disagreement. Just silence...
#110 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday August 6)
#110 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday August…
#110 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday August 6)
Greetings! THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIALS HAVE RETURNED! Back when I was practicing law, I had a fun time dropping silly inconsequential phrases in the “boilerplate” of documents, to see if they came back in other firms’ forms when lifted without reading (they came back more than one would think). The best place for these little “cousins of mountweazels” was in the “force majeure” clause. Force majeure, for those who may not recall, are a large number of unlikely, uncontrollable events that, through no fault of a party, might delay that party’s performance. Storms, fires, and other acts of g-d are some of the more obvious. Adding “or other deity” is a nice addition. My favorite, though, was “extra-terrestrial event.” When a serious lawyer on the other side actually read all the boilerplate he observed, “I assume what you have in mind are meteor showers or asteroids.” I responded, “No, I’m talking about visitation.” I could practically hear across the phone line his pen taking notes on my clarification. No laughter. No disagreement. Just silence...