On child-friendly activities, contractual releases, and choice of forum: part 5.¹

The story so far:
- brought my kids to a temporary indoor playground in a mall;
- had to fill in an online waiver form before unleashing my brood;
- actually bothered to read the legalese; and
- am now letting my nerd flag fly.

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In the last post, we talked about the danger of false friends² creeping into our contract drafting.

So what are some things to look out for when entering into cross-border contracts and transactions?

1️⃣ Always consider the provenance of a draft contract.

Look, just like many of you, I'm a self-employed business owner. And I get it - if you have a deal that needs to be closed quickly, sometimes you think that engaging a lawyer is going to cost too much, or take too long.

And so you consult your good friend Google, and you stumble upon some template. You read through it, and it appears fit for purpose. You therefore amend the template to include the party details, get it executed, and go about your merry way.

And in all likelihood, nothing happens for months or even years.

But here's the kicker: if a dispute subsequently arises, you're bound by the terms of that template.

Now, if you were lucky enough to have stumbled upon a template that was drafted by a lawyer, to be interpreted based on the laws of your jurisdiction, and the commercial intention behind that template happened to be identical to yours when the template was executed...

...good for you!

Also, you must be the kind of person who strikes the lottery regularly.

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Alas, for those of us who are mere mortals, that's a bit too much to expect. Because - seriously - how do you know who drafted or amended that template, and if it's any good as a result?

And the funny thing about legal documentation is, you won't really know if it works or not until something goes wrong months or years later. It's not like, say, following a recipe, or furniture assembly directions from IKEA, for which you get immediate feedback³ on whether the final product is good or bad.

But for legal documentation: not so.

And, well, don't even get me started on documentation generated by an Large Language Model⁴, which is a whole different conversation altogether.

Which is why there is value in considering whether your draft documentation is from a reliable and appropriate source.

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In part 6, I'll share a couple more practical tips on things to look out for when entering into cross-border contracts and transactions, and conclude this series (hopefully⁵).