Hereof, Thereof and Everywhereof: A Contrarian Guide to Legal Drafting [Paperback]

Howard Damstadter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 2003

Written by a business lawyer for business lawyers, this enjoyable guide covers the basics of legal drafting as well as specific types of documents.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Howard Darmstadter has been practicing business law in New York City since 1977 and has been a lawyer for Citigroup Inc. and its predeccessors since 1985. Since 1993, Darmstadter has published three to four columns a year on legal documentation under the heading "Legal-Ease" in Business Law Today, the magazine of the American Bar Association's Section of Business Law. In 2000, Legal-Ease won the American Society of Business Publications Editors' national Gold Award for editorial excellence. Darmstadter has also published in The Business Lawyer and The Uniform Commercial Code Law Journal.

Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: American Bar Association (June 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590310772
• ISBN-13: 978-1590310779
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,642,271 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quirky, but with a lot of helpful advice., September 23, 2002

By 

Wayne Schiess (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hereof, Thereof and Everywhereof: A Contrarian Guide to Legal Drafting (Paperback)

I like this book. That said, it has some odd things about it.

I like: its support of clear and direct legal drafting, and its advice to abandon the archaic, formalistic garbage that clogs so much legal drafting.
I like: the section on document design and format, which is contemporary and sensible; the author explains in detail why a lot of legal-document formatting still looks so stodgy: the lingering effects of the typewriter.
I like: the practical advice from an experienced drafter on a variety of drafting subjects: headings, numbering, boilerplate, definitions, counterpart documents, and schedules/exhibits.

But there were some unexpected and odd sections, too: (1) a fairly long discussion of using footnotes for citations; this seems out of place in a book about transactional drafting; (2) a short chapter on explaining with examples, which contains an odd section on how to pick the fictional names for the example characters you are using; and (3) eight pages on guaranties--not on how to draft them, but on the substantive law of guaranty and suretyship; it again seemed out of place in a book about writing.

But the book is modern and has a lot of practical advice. I recommend it.