What's a non-compete?

This post is about non-compete clauses, and the US Federal Trade Commission's new rule banning them in certain contexts.

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 If you think I misspelled "stopped" in the title, you're probably not alone. I didn't. Let's talk about estoppel.  

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The term guarantee causes a lot of confusion for lawyers whose native language is not English (and for lawyers whose native language is English, too). Why?  

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Hereto, herein, herewith…. lawyers writing in English tend to use these terms quite a lot. They are never used in common speech and rarely used in writing by non-lawyers. What do they mean and when are they used? 

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"For good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, the parties agree as follows”.  Do you know what this language means and why so many lawyers include it at the beginning of contracts? 

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In Happy Goat Coffee et al. v. Barber et al., the court issued a Mareva  injunction freezing cryptocurrency accounts used to fund anti-COVID measure protests that caused massive disruptions to downtown Ottawa, Canada's capital. But what's a Mareva injunction?

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In this post, we explore what the various parts of a contract are called in English, and how to write about them. 

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Which is better: “the company's contracts” or “the contracts of the company”? Both are correct, but the most natural way to express possession in English is through ’s. “The company’s contracts” sounds more natural than "the contracts of the company". 

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Drafting and interpreting contracts is something that lawyers do every day. The verbs “shall”, “will” and “must” are commonly used in contracts to create obligations – something that must be done, without the option not to do it.  

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Lawyers are known to have very busy schedules. How can you fit practicing and improving your English into your day?  

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Lawyers write many different types of documents in which they have to explain what a court decided, and how the court reached its decision. What are the best ways to do that in English?  

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In the common law world, force majeure is usually a contractual concept, not a statutory one. This means that the application of force majeure depends on the wording of the specific clause, and can vary widely.  

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Latin expressions are very common in legal writing in many languages, but the ones used in English are not necessarily the ones used in your language. Do you know what ratio decidendi and obiter dicta mean?

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