Cont(r)act

Surely most of you have watched the SF movie starring Jodie Foster called Contact?

For those who have not, the plot of the movie takes place in modern times and describes attempts to establish contact with a distant civilization in space which is the age-old aspiration of humankind.

Contact with other civilization is a cultural, theological, security, psychological shock to man.

What is interesting is that numerous experts are involved in the preparation of the crew to establish contact such as: philosophers, theologists and priests, scientists, security experts, doctors etc.

Now, back to Mother Earth and let us engage in daily activities in the economy and imagine that ’’conventional’’ commercial contract needs to be made between two industries that do not know each other.

You understand the parable?

In preparation of such contract we need, also, to involve various sectors of both contracting parties, such as finance, operational, commercial sector, legal sector etc.

What we want to say is that those are frequently two industries that do not know each other, in the same way as two distant civilizations.

Each industry has its own operational laws and contracts cannot be made as a model for all types of situations, especially one should not rely on the Law, but should regulate its relations with a contract that understands the industry well, eliminates all of risks and determines all mechanisms for overcoming problems.

Life has more imagination than any agreement may have.

That is why is important for lawyers to know the industry of their client well, as well as his operational activities and processes.

Interestingly enough, language of the contract also plays a very important part, especially when we talk about different industries that come from different ’’climates’’.

Because of that, it is necessary to specify exactly which term has which meaning, given that a large part of the contract is often full of certain technical terms.

 (e.g. haute couture, off the rack, go-live phase, Search Engine Optimization).

With all of the above in mind, one of the roles of lawyers is to connect “different worlds” and to overcome, by the contract, differences between companies and connect them in the best way possible, regardless of them being from different industries.

Every new situation is a new „cont(r)act“ for itself and demands constant learning in order to connect better.

Therefore, you need to view your contracts in a way that they are “custom-made”, specifically for the needs of a particular business relationship and be sure that with a „new“ civilization communicate in such a manner that you understand each other well.

Otherwise, there are great chances that these terms shall be explained and interpreted at the court.