果冻影院

Dates

29 & 30 October 2024
20 & 21 January 2025 (Monday & Tuesday)
19 & 20 May 2025 (Monday & Tuesday)

Each day of the course runs from 09:45 - 13:00

About the course

Do you want your contract drafting to be clear, correct, concise and consistent? Do you want your contracts to be understood, and interpreted correctly, by multiple 鈥渟takeholders鈥�, including project managers, business executives, lawyers and, if a dispute over the contract reaches court, a judge?

Course summary

This practical, one-day course is designed to help you improve your contract drafting skills. It combines teaching on modern drafting techniques with multiple, practical exercises to help you apply that teaching and improve your drafting. We provide a relaxed environment in which to look carefully at drafting issues, away from the pressure of negotiations.

If you are good at general business or legal writing, your skills will get you some of the way to drafting contracts well. But the mix of techniques used in good contract drafting is unique. We will discuss when to use and when to reject general writing techniques for contract drafting.

By looking at examples of good and bad contract wording, we will explore what works and what doesn鈥檛, and how apparently satisfactory wording can be tweaked to remove ambiguities and uncertainties. In doing so, we will keep in mind the four Cs - four objectives that are sometimes underrated or overlooked: clarity, correctness (accuracy), conciseness and consistency.

We will also consider how the courts interpret contracts, but this won鈥檛 be the primary focus of the day. It is often better to draft clearly and in a way that avoids litigation, than to focus solely on how to 鈥渨in鈥� in court.

Please note: this is a course about learning and applying techniques to improve contract drafting. There is a greater emphasis on practice than theory. It is not focussed on any one practice area (though it will be informed by the course leader鈥檚 experience, over 30 years, of drafting commercial contracts where intellectual property issues are important). It is not designed to help you do a better commercial deal, outsmart an opponent, or persuade a court to uphold a one-sided clause (e.g. to make an extreme liability clause seem 鈥渞easonable鈥� for the purposes of UCTA).

Benefits of attending this course

By attending this course you will:

• Gain a better understanding of common drafting mistakes and pitfalls
• Learn techniques for drafting clearer contracts
• Practise your drafting skills by working on multiple, practical exercises
• Receive feedback on how to improve your drafting

Feedback from recent course

• "Multiple and helpful examples given from practice - helps bring theory to life"
• "Very clear, friendly and approachable. Great personal examples and practical tips"
• "Enjoyable Course. The time flew by. Interesting and Interactive"

Course Schedule

DAY ONE:
09:45 Introduction: Who are we writing for; their expectations; should we meet them?
10:00听 Improving clarity (teaching and exercises)
[Comfort break around 10:30]
11:15 Improving accuracy (teaching and exercises)
[Comfort break around 11:45]
13:00 Day one ends

DAY TWO
09:45 How the courts interpret contracts, including the 鈥渃anons of construction鈥�.
10.00 Using and avoiding legal jargon, and legal terms of art
[comfort break at around 11:00]
11.30 Improving consistency and being concise (teaching and exercises)
[comfort break at around 12:00
12.15 Putting it all together: identifying drafting problems (and solutions) in commonly-used template agreements
13:00 Course finishes

About the tutor

The course has been designed, and will be run, by Mark Anderson. His credentials are:

Solicitor:听He is a practising solicitor, who is recommended in Chambers Directory for both life science transactions and IP. He is recommended in the international guide, IAM Patent 1000, as a leading UK lawyer in the field of IP licensing. His blog on IP contracts, IP Draughts, was made a member of the Blawg100 by the American Bar Association in 2012. He is a Certified Licensing Professional (a qualification established by the Licensing Executives Society (US and Canada)).

Author:听He is the author or co-author of 7 practitioner texts on IP and contract drafting subjects, published by OUP, LexisNexis, Bloomsbury and Law Society Publishing. They include:

Technology Transfer听(4th edn, Bloomsbury, 2020). 鈥楢ll practitioners who deal with technology transfer arrangements in England and Wales should own a copy of this work.鈥� (Journal of E-commerce, Technology and Communications)

Drafting and Negotiating Commercial Contracts听(4th edn, Bloomsbury, 2015). 鈥業t is one of the best, if not the best, texts on the principles of commercial drafting鈥� The material is extremely well written and accessible.鈥� (Student Law Journal).

Execution of Documents听(3rd edn, Law Society, 2015). 鈥楾his is, for a highly technical law book, a riveting read. Keep it on your shelves and you鈥檒l be confident that you will have the answer to most issues about how to make a legal document work.鈥� (New Law Journal)

A-Z Guide to Boilerplate and Commercial Clauses听(4th edn, Bloomsbury, 2017). 鈥楢n extremely useful reference work, the book will be of great benefit to in-house counsel drafting commercial contracts鈥� (the In-House Lawyer). 鈥榌The book] is very useful and I hope that it will reach a wider audience.鈥� (His Honour Humphrey Lloyd QC, The International Construction Law Review).

Drafter:听He and his colleagues have drafted hundreds of precedents for commercial contracts, which have been published by OUP, LexisNexis and others.

Trainer:听He has run CPD courses on contract drafting subjects for the last 20 years, and is the course director of a 5-day course, Intellectual Property Transactions: Law and Practice, which is run by the Institute of Brands and Innovation Law at 果冻影院

Fees

Standard Ticket = 拢600 (inc VAT)
IBIL Sponsor / 果冻影院 Alumni = 拢510 (inc VAT)

Book online at:

Course delivery

This course will delivered via Zoom. You will need to download Zoom to your computer or use the online version of Zoom. You will be sent the meeting id number and password on the Friday before your course.

Course materials will be delivered to you via a dedicated Sharepoint site for the course.

Cancellation and Refunds

All cancellations and refund requests must be made in writing 10 full working days (Monday to Friday) prior to the start of the event to laws-events@ucl.ac.uk (or to the contact person for the event).

If the above notification period is not given, or in the event of non-attendance, then the following cancellation fee applies:
- 拢25 for a half-day workshop
- 拢50 for one day workshop

果冻影院 Laws reserves the right to make changes to the programme, location and/or speakers without prior notice. Such alterations are occasionally necessary due to circumstances beyond our control.

During the event, please ensure that your attendance is noted each day to avoid being charged the cancellation fee - this will normally be by signing an attendance sheet at registration.

Refunds
Refunds will be made to the payment method used for the original payment, ie if you paid via card you will receive your refund to your card, less any cancellations fees (if applicable).

Illness
In the event of non-attendance due to illness, a doctor鈥檚 certificate must be provided, otherwise the full cancellation fee will be charged. Individuals who withdraw after the start of an course will still be liable for the cancellation fee as outlined above.

Cancellation and non-attendance for paid events
An individual who has registered for an event who doesn't provide the required 10 working days notice and who fails to attend will NOT receive a refund. This is due to administrative, speaker and catering costs incurred by the department (and your place could have been allocated to another individual).

Attendees are welcome to send a substitute without incurring a charge, provided 果冻影院 Laws is notified in writing (laws-events@ucl.ac.uk or the event contact person) three full working days prior to the event.

Unforeseen circumstances
果冻影院 Laws reserves the right to cancel or re-schedule an event due to unforeseen circumstances. In the unlikely event of cancellations, 果冻影院 Laws will refund the full amount of the registration fee (if applicable). However, personal expenses incurred by the attendee are non-refundable by 果冻影院 Laws.

Queries

If you have any queries about this course please contact Lisa Penfold at the 果冻影院 Faculty of Laws by emailing听lisa.penfold@ucl.ac.uk

听