In honor of Jacksonville Bar Association President Ray Driver and to further the mission of increasing the visibility and involvement of the Transactional Law Section, The Young Lawyers Section of The JBA is proud to offer a new three-part CLE lunch series that will focus on contract drafting and negotiation.
The three CLE presentations will be prepared and presented by YLS members and are geared toward young lawyers or lawyers with minimal transactional drafting experience.
While the subject of each course will directly be related to a transactional practice, the series also is very appropriate for litigators who draft the occasional agreement, such as settlement or confidentiality agreements.
Each session will include lunch and presentation materials and will begin at noon at the office of Holland & Knight. Participants may sign up for any one of the course offerings individually, or the entire series for a reduced rate.
The first course offering, "Ethics for the Transactional Attorney," will be March 12.
This course will consider some of the critical ethical issues attorneys who negotiate and draft agreements should be aware of and understand before drafting.
The presentation will address topics such as communications between lawyers, when — if ever — it is permissible to email the opposing party, "deal terms" versus "legal terms," and the role of attorneys on each side of a transaction.
CLE ethics credit is being applied for from The Florida Bar.
The second CLE in the series, "The Basics of Contract Drafting," will be April 2.
This presentation will discuss the function of the sections of a typical contract, tips for organizing the structure of the agreement and general drafting construction guidelines.
This presentation will review frequently included boilerplate terms and factors that should be considered when adding or deleting "standard terms."
The course also will weigh the advantages and disadvantages of using a form or template and techniques for simplifying the "legalese" without losing any of the intended meaning.
In addition, this course will examine a standard settlement agreement and commercial sales agreement and participants will have an opportunity to draft an example agreement.
The third and final CLE presentation, "Negotiation Strategies," will be April 23.
This CLE will be a discussion of some of the time-tested and research-proven techniques taught by professors and used by legal practitioners throughout the country.
The CLE will review the basics of negotiation and use a hands-on, case-study approach to apply the techniques learned during the course.
Some of the hot topics discussed will include the five key rules of negotiation strategy. They are to gather information, create effective leverage, create reasonable demands and expectations, create an offer-counteroffer strategy and control the pace as you negotiate.
Additionally, there will be a discussion of some of the common negotiation games played by opposing negotiators, as well as some of the basic tools and documents used in negotiating business deals.
At the end of the course, the lecturer will present a case study for the group to use by negotiating with teammates and opponents. This will allow each participant to apply the techniques learned during the course.
For more information about The YLS Transactional Drafting CLE lunch series, please contact: Christine Bell at [email protected], Beau Baker at [email protected], or Renée Maxey at [email protected].