Contract Drafting
Contract drafting is a funny thing. Have an executive director and a lawyer both draw up a contract on the same matter, and you will receive totally different results. The lawyer wants to stipulate every last detail, while the executive focuses on „economic key points“ and will rely a lot on what is implied. This „reliance on what is implied“ irritates the legal expert, who hates assumptions. To give a simple example: a car purchase agreement. The attorney will decree something along the lines of „Seller shall hand over two (2) keys“. Your average executive director will not include anything of the sort in „his“ agreement, because a car without keys makes no sense, and no one would dream of selling a car without keys.
Contrasting German-style and American-style contract drafting also yields interesting observations: German agreements are short, transparent, with a straightforward structure. American agreements are highly detailed, but confuse the layperson, who cannot get „a handle on it“. The German-style contract is a species going extinct. After all, the advance of American ideas is unstoppable in many other areas, and I do not think this is necessarily a bad thing. Lots of ideas in American contracts are, well, neat. Putting the definitions up front, ahead of the body of the contract, for instance: clever. On the other hand, inflation adjustment clauses that run over two pages, say, definitely ask for an acquired taste. As always, the key is to find the proper mixture: a contract that is transparent and at the same time sufficiently detailed.