Drafting an Effective Commercial Agreement – Any Magic Ingredients?

Abstract

Good drafting skills cannot be acquired overnight, they come with practice and experience. Self-reflection is particularly important for our continuous learning and improvement. It is helpful to stop for a moment to reflect critically on what our drafting practice has been. Have you thought about the ingredients you have been using for drafting an agreement? Have they been working well or do you think there could be other ingredients that you could have added? No recipe can do without any basic, essential ingredients, and drafting is no different. An “effective” commercial agreement should be a “tailor-made” document with at least the following qualities: “Certainty, Completeness and Clarity” – the 3Cs. Although there are no magic ingredients to drafting an effective commercial agreement, there are however some essential ingredients we cannot do without and each person may have his or her own list of such ingredients. What are some of these essential ingredients and how can lawyers turn them into an effective commercial agreement? This article lists out some of these essential ingredients. Good drafting comes with experience and reflective practice – have you been using the right ingredients for drafting commercial agreements and have they been working well?