Common Ground

As we approach Halloween and The Day of the Dead, it would be fitting to do another installment of our “Revenge of the Unread“ articles.  We certainly have a steady stream of examples where unread agreements have led to bad outcomes.  (Thanks to DocuSign and similar tools for making examples even easier to find.) Instead…

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . .” The initial few words from the famous first sentence of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities captures the difference between a successful transaction and a disastrous transaction.    It was the best of times…. 123 Company was a longstanding…

When it comes to electronic agreements, we all know that we are in a “click to agree” world.   Just about every day we make decisions on whether agreements we’re about to accept are even worth reading. Hopefully people are becoming more cautious about reading through their more significant agreements.  Some of our recent articles have…

Over a year has passed since we warned of the risk of signing unread documents in Revenge of the Unread. It’s no surprise, but many signers are still not reading documents before agreeing to the contents. If anything, operating in today’s more virtual world leads to even more opportunities to “click to agree.”  Agreeing without…

“Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”  The media was asked that often-quoted question by a wrongly accused government official more than 30 years ago.   Repairing a damaged reputation takes years – if it’s even possible. Your reputation is precious and in the world of complex transactions, whether you are a…

You know about “taking care of business.”    But what does it mean to take care of a business transaction – especially an important M&A transaction?   To us it means keeping the transaction moving forward, on time, and with organization and clarity.  It means spending time, ideally every day, on the transaction and always looking for…

It may sound quaint or old-fashioned, but there was a time when a seasoned business executive would keep a special “signing pen” for executing important agreements.   Using a special pen for significant transactions captured the mindset that by writing their name, the signer had approved the agreement and accepted responsibility for the transaction.   The agreement…

Transaction Commons prides itself on being “Where Deals Get Done,” but we’re really about helping our clients run an effective and efficient transaction process.  And sometimes deals don’t get done. There are important process steps to wrap up a failed transaction that are sometimes ignored, and we think are worthy of a reminder.  One of…

After more than a decade of trying to make negotiated transactions more efficient – either as a transaction lawyer or running Transaction Commons – the best way to describe the effort, and too often its hope for success, is herding cats.   The classic Electronic Data Systems Cat Herders commercial from years ago presents the challenge.…

It’s finally here – signing day for your transaction.  The document may be in your email (or sent by an electronic signature application) and ready for your signature.  So perhaps signing is as easy as a simple click.  Or maybe the printed paper agreement is laying on your desk or sitting in front of you…