Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Legalese
As part of my "Jack of all Trades" role in my company I perform various minor legal duties (note to the ABA: I do not actually "practice law") which includes drafting of contracts. We are bringing on all of these sales folks and so you can imagine that I am busy. In our business there is a lot of interest in confidentiality, proprietary information, etc. as well standard non-compete stuff. As such, there are a lot of clauses I took a lot of time to craft delicately that weave through the fine legal strands of what these employees can/cannot do during and after their term with us. Sales people are fickle, they bounce around a lot so it is important that you restrict them from giving away our sensitive information while at the same time preserving their ability to work should they need to hock a product elsewhere.
So I've crafted what I consider to be a pretty decent K (that's legalese for a contract). I had some go-bys to work with, so a hat tip to them. I present this K in various forms to the potential employees and what do I get? Trouble all around. No one actually takes the time to read the damned thing through. They just skim it over, see something they don't like and the whole paragraph has to go. My favorite thing is when they come to me directly asking me to strike the Non-Compete clause.
Yeah, not gonna happen. But you can't blame them for it, really. They have no legal training to speak of. But it frustrates the hell out of me when I have to go over the document clause by clause and explain what it means when it says "including but not limited to". I know why some lawyers refer to the non-legally trained caste as "civilians" thereby creating a distinction.
¶ 10:50 AM 
So I've crafted what I consider to be a pretty decent K (that's legalese for a contract). I had some go-bys to work with, so a hat tip to them. I present this K in various forms to the potential employees and what do I get? Trouble all around. No one actually takes the time to read the damned thing through. They just skim it over, see something they don't like and the whole paragraph has to go. My favorite thing is when they come to me directly asking me to strike the Non-Compete clause.
"Oh, I see, you want us just to hand you a check and let you do whatever for whomever you please? OK then!"
Yeah, not gonna happen. But you can't blame them for it, really. They have no legal training to speak of. But it frustrates the hell out of me when I have to go over the document clause by clause and explain what it means when it says "including but not limited to". I know why some lawyers refer to the non-legally trained caste as "civilians" thereby creating a distinction.
