Management Contracting
"Making It"
Knowledge, Wisdom, and Guidance for The Talented at Heart
by
David Hamilton
Vague Writing
_____________
People often use vague terminology so that they can not be pinned down to
your perception of a defined term in an agreement. What "frequently" means
to one person can take on a whole new meaning to another person.
Terminating
Agreement Before the Duration of Contract: If there are frequent drops in
financial gain from the artist for more than a normal time period, this contract
can be breached by said company.
ok, so basically what this means, if you do not define ( frequent ) and (
normal ) you are basically opening yourself up to having no obligation from your
company what so ever. If normal to your company is never having a financial loss
in revenue, then you have breached the contract. Also, the duration of the
contract should be obvious and stated at least twice.
Business decisions are based on facts, and the facts in business change as
research professionals find change in business. If information in a contract is
vague and mis leading or not easily understood, the decisions made will be too.
For instance, I had a contract that stated,
Termination of contract: Company can terminate this agreement at
anytime for cause at the companies digression.
so in return, I made them add a line in the contract that said the same for
myself,
Employee can terminate the contract for cause at the employees digression.
Needless to say it didn't go over too well with the company, however they wanted
to hire me, so they deleted the sentence in the contract and defined cause in a
paragraph below without the words, but not limited to. But not limited to
automatically takes away the meaning for having a paragraph defining the meaning
!
IE: Cause us defined as, being late for work, stealing, malicious behavior,
........ but not limited to
basically this means that this part of the contract would
have better left un written, because it holds no value to yourself.