Guidelines for Drafting and Editing Contracts (Other)

Highly recommended. There is no better source for a lawyer who wants to improve contract drafting and editing skills. The book is thoroughly resourced and thoughtfully constructed, permitting any reasonably motivated drafter to understand and apply its precepts.

Garner does it again. This book overflows with practical wisdom, with advice on topics from clear organization to the proper use of auxiliary verbs. If you draft contracts, this belongs on your shelf.

This is a great reference guide. It provides examples on mistakes and solutions.

Outstanding

The book is great, from beginning to end. The author shows you example after example of how to edit typical contract errors. He discusses formatting and all other parts of the contract drafting process. I read it cover to cover and thorough enjoyed it. Only Bryan Garner make this topic entertaining and a joy to read.

Bryan Garner is one of the biggest influences on how I write. When I first encountered Garner’s work on legal writing, he was clearly advancing the state of the art. When I saw that he had a book on contract drafting, I was excited. I bought the book, and dug in. His new book feels like he is resting on his laurels. If Garner had written this book no later than the early 2000’s, he would have been advancing the state of the art. If he had written it by the late 2000’s, the best you could have said was that he was contesting the state of the art. The state of the art has clearly passed him by. I won’t go into all the reasons. Ken Adams has a fairly exhaustive listing in a review on his Adams on Contract Drafting blog. For me, it is enough that a lawyer relying on Garner’s many, many examples would end up copying language that sometimes violates Garner’s own prescriptions. If there is anything that typifies great drafting (as opposed to deal-doing), it is consistency in style and content. I see that another reviewer has said that this book belongs on a contract drafter's shelf. I agree, but not in a good way. This book should stay on the shelf – don’t take it down and use it. Perfectly seriously, if I was evaluating the reliability of our outside contract-drafting counsel, and I saw them using this book as their guide, I’d search for a replacement firm. For me, the shelf it will be on is at home, because I won’t find a use for it at work. So why do I even give this book two stars? First, because of the narrowness of the field, there are only a few resources that aren’t purely idiosyncratic or focused on a specific kind of contract. This could make it – barely – into the top ten in a field of maybe a dozen works that have some more general use. Second, there are many things that he says with which I agree. If a law school professor made the mistake of using this for the text, at least the class would get some decent advice on drafting, which is more than I got in law school. Third, for the lawyer who doesn’t write contracts at all, this would be a fine work to put on the shelf to impress other lawyers who don’t write contracts – you, too, can rest on Garner’s laurels!

The guidelines are an extraordinary resource to all who draft contracts, regardless of our system is the common law or not. This book provides valuable advice on how to review a draft from the beginning and how to write them.