My LinkedIn July 2020 article titled Manufacturing a future for Australia¹ surrounds how we have scrambled to establish alternate local supply lines for goods, including personal protective equipment (PPE) masks and groceries, as well as services, such as call center support and as-a-service provisioning.

As the global pandemic continues to impact economies and industries worldwide, corporate legal teams and firms are being deeply impacted. Predictions vary widely on the longer-term effect that COVID-19 will have on the legal industry. Despite the near term challenges, sources like the National Law Review see a much brighter picture in the future, with new or evolving companies that emerge out of the crisis needing help with incorporating, running, and protecting their businesses.

This article introduces ten ways to embed images into contracts to reach greater clarity and avoid confusion. It demonstrates a first step toward reducing worries around the legal interpretation of contract visualization -- an emerging field of research and practice.   It builds on and expands the authors’ recent work on using and interpreting images in contracts.¹

Have you ever tried to draft a statement of work (SOW) only to find out that no uniform clause exists for determining net present value in commercial item contracts? Did you know the Federal Acquisition Regulations System¹ also known as FAR is what the United States Government uses when drafting a statement of work (SOW)?

Greg Tharp, who has written excellent articles for us recently, offers this two-part series about cost recovery for commercial item contracts.  He starts with this question…

What follows is an update of Arnaud Cervera’s article that was originally published March 14, 2020, on LinkedIn. We preface his piece with an endorsement from Tim Cummins, President of IACCM, who stated recently,

“This is an excellent article and absolutely hits the right points on the combination of simplification and the use of artificial intelligence (AI.) I’d like to suggest there are two additional issues that need to be addressed to make this change fast and effective.

1. Economics- IACCM has been spending time (and using AI) to analyze the powerful business case - not only within individual organizations, but also now in the context of national economies.

2. Standards - For benefits to be sustainable, we should avoid the mistake of replacing one art form (individual approaches to design and drafting) with another. There is a growing army of ‘design specialists’, each with their own view of how it should be done. Imagine if accountants took a similar view to producing accounts - we would finish up with replacing one form of chaos with another.

So again, IACCM has been working to create a publicly available ‘design library’. It’s also worth mentioning that the legal authorities which oversee court and dispute systems need to come on board with this - so we are working on that too.” - Tim Cummins

This is the third in a series of articles on business relationships, triggered by the coronavirus (COVID-19) and economic crisis, but the recommendations hold true well beyond both of those challenges.

The notorious reputation of clinical trial contracts needs no introduction in the clinical trial business world. As far back as 2009, a survey indicated clinical trial contract and budget approval as the leading cause of clinical trial delay.^1. A decade later, this stumbling block still hinders timely clinical trial startup.²

Most common flaws existing in natural language contracts are remnants of either older contracts that have since evolved or as contrary clauses in contracts that cover interrelated activities. When it comes to smart contracts, coding language requires events, rules and other business logic to be absolutely clear — and this requirement forces many companies to revisit their current contracts with fresh eyes for simplification and clarification.

Are you connected? I’m not referring to your digital applications that help you perform your work or telecommunicate with others. I’m asking, are you really connecting meaningfully with all parties to the contract – before it is signed and after?