Business-friendly contracting : how simplification and visualization can help bring it to practice

Abstract

One thesis of this book is that the legal function within businesses will shift from a paradigm of security to one of opportunity. This chapter embraces that likelihood in the context of business contracting, where voices calling for a major shift are starting to surface. It explores how contracts can be used to reach better outcomes and relationships, not just safer ones. It introduces the concept of business-friendly contracting, highlighting the need for contracts to be seen as business tools rather than exclusively as legal tools, and working as business enablers rather than obstacles. By changing the design of contracts and the ways in which those contracts are communicated—through simplification and visualization, for example—legal and business operations can be better integrated. Contracts can then be more useful to business, and contract provisions can actually become more secure by becoming easier to negotiate and implement.