Just conversing with the friend who now has better working hours about how amazing it is that when one is busy, work comes, when one is free, work doesn’t come in at all; something my boss always complains about (after all he’s past retirement age and still working, preferring to take it slow). I noticed that if I had nothing to do over one weekend, no one would ask me out or if I do, no one is available but when I have events packed into the rather short weekend, everyone comes asking for a bit of my time.

Today was amazing because the bestie called for help. Unfortunately I was doing my duty as a driver and didn’t answer her in time. Then I got an email asking me to look through some tenancy agreements which brings me to the focus of this post really. The agreement consisted of an application form (fine), a pre-tenancy agreement (fine), the main agreement (fine) and this extra agreement that was short but included in case there was a substitution of one of the tenants (unnecessary). That could be included as a clause in the main agreement. Full stop. I am sick of reading lines after lines and writings of the SAME thing. I concluded that this is the work of the lay people because American lawyers drafts one of the world’s best contracts, well structured contracts and concised clauses.

Next problem, the pre-tenancy agreement was full of repeated clauses it seemed the drafter was worried that if not emphasised, the agreement will lose its meaning. Also, I couldn’t help correcting the “legal grammar”. Sometimes the landlord is referred to as the landlord, other times the owner. Sometimes the tenant is referred to as the tenant, other times applicant or approved applicant. Another hint that its the work of a layman. Its unlikely that this will ever end up in a lawsuit but if it did, I definitely wish I wasn’t representing either parties.

Moving on to the main agreement which gives me the most headache. LOADS OF GRAMMATICAL, SPELLING AND TYPO ERRORS. It is an eye sore to me because grammatical, spelling and typos are errors that even the primary school kid using the computer can ratify. Again, in this agreement there are LOADS OF REPEATED CLAUSES.

I guess I’ve seen enough of individuals trying to save on lawyers’ fees and creating such a disaster. In fact I recalled a court hearing I went where the judge said at the end of his judgment: please go back and advise all your clients and get them to tell their friends to leave the drafting of contracts to the professionals. It is not to allow lawyers to earn quick cash, in fact they put in a lot of hours looking at them, but to reduce the number of cases I have to hear before me each day where lawyers make a fool of themselves because of badly drafted contracts. Don’t you think its ridiculous saving a few hundred or thousand bucks on drafting a contract only to have to spend more to fight a case because of its bad drafting? Good contract drafting can reduce time and money wasted in fighting court cases.

I can’t agree more. In fact he later shared on how his litigation friend had to bring him (the judge) along when he thought of buying a house because he (the judge) is specialised in contract reading.

I shall leave you all with what he said: even my lawyer friend, who is of course as capable to read a contract as I am, is asking me to go along to make sure the contract he was signing was in place, why can’t non-legal trained people be as cautious?

I forwarded an attachment to a friend and in the email, I unknowingly used words like “attached is… for your attention and perusal” and got a reply that read: why do people bring work lingo into personal emails?

The answer is due to work lingo being used at home by the dad who constantly airs his disgruntlement at his inability to find as good a mentor for himself than as he is to me now. He would pick up and read one of the law books that he found strewn at one corner of our house, all the works of my brother who is prepping for his examinations for the coming week, and tell told me he’d make a good lawyer and went on his usual routine to make us (or rather me in particular) realise how fortunate I am to have a mentor like him.

When he wants to get certain points across he would use legal jargons like “TAKE NOTICE” (in caps and bold), bet he’d underline if he could, in his sms to us. Sometimes, he would sms us instead of tell us in the face even though we are all in the house; he claimed for reasons why lawyers write to their clients instead of call.

I recalled an incident when I was just complaining about how crowded it would be on the trains in the morning yet people will still be trying to read the newspaper. And he went (with a disgusted face): whats most terrible, this guy who had his earphones so loud that he could hear everything even enough my dad wasn’t even standing next to him. He then brought my attention to a newspaper article in Today (that day) about how people are getting deaf earlier because of this, especially males. What made me laughed out loud was when he said he was going to photocopy that newspaper article and cc a copy each to my brothers.

Seriously! Is it even necessary to use office lingo at home?

A friend who has finally chosen the “life is short route” can now talk to me from home at 12 midnight. He would otherwise be still in office working at this hour and wouldn’t even be close to knocking off.

He was telling me that everytime he works late, he’ll snack on fast food. He has pretty much lead an unhealthy lifestyle and when I commented “you’ll die very early if you continue like this”, his immediate response was “thanks I like lilies”. Talking to those in the same trade requires quick wit and being constantly on one’s toes. Gosh I foresee myself becoming a very secretive individual in future…

Lately advocacy seemed to take centre stage of my life and I thought it was useful to share snippets of some action right here which non-lawyers or non-defendants will not have a chance to experience or if they do, will not have the patience to sit through as observed from how the length of time the members of the public actually sat through the cross examinination of the trials. Savour and enjoy the power of the weapon of words.