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Subject:Legalese employment agreement? From:"Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> Date:Wed, 6 Jan 1999 06:58:26 -0700
Kristen Beer had some questions as <<...an Employment Agreement that
was a legal contract boilerplate, not designed by the company for the
company, and certainly not with the employees' ionterests as
priority. Consequently, the CEO has asked me to lead a team reqirte
to make the document friendlier.>>
First off, "legalese" and "friendly" are mutually exclusive. They
shouldn't be, but that's the way it usually works out. Don't touch
this job with a ten-foot pole: lawyers write legalese, and nobody
else should try because the meanings and correct usage of many common
words are ***not the same as in English***. The two languages are
only superficially similar.
If your boss balks, the only decent compromise I can suggest is that
you prepare a draft yourself and have a lawyer edit it for
conformance with the law in your jurisdiction. Even this compromise
is risky because someone higher up the chain may say "this
draft sounds good... why spend money on a lawyer?" There are
potentially serious legal liability issues for you and your team if
some future employee takes the firm to court over the wording
because you (not a qualified lawyer) wrote it. In the past, I've
always dodged this kind of assignment with the following words: "I'm
not a lawyer, and God willing, never will be. If you want a legally
valid agreement, hire a lawyer... I'm not touching this task and you
can't make me." (Well... a tad more politely than that, but that's
the gist of it.) Refuse politely, but refuse.
<<The objective is to build a positive and long term relationship,
NOT to intimidate or offend new employees with overbearing rules and
regulations.>>
Then make this crystal clear to your lawyer: "please update this so
it's still legally valid but so that our staff can understand it".
Again, let me emphasize that the language used by the courts is very
different from standard English, and unless you're broadly and deeply
familiar with legalese, you're in great danger of changing a meaning
and opening yourself to a lawsuit.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
