Hi everyone! I’ve been moving How to Contract this year to offer more and more of our high-quality training programs and materials for free. Our new Resources site is the center of that effort and where you’ll be able to find tons of insights and strategies from our expert speakers and contributors. This newsletter is a condensed version of all of that.

Here are the How to Contract highlights:

Thank you to the contracts community for all your support of our webinars, our newsletter, and everything else. I am so grateful. And a big thank you to the How to Contract team, Rin Santiago and Sam Frederick, for all you do to make it all possible.

- Laura Frederick, CEO at How to Contract 🥸❤️

Here’s are quick links to the newsletter’s sections:

QUICK TAKE

Annmarie Giblin and Aparna Williams made some intriguing points on required notice for security incidents during our webinar yesterday on AI data security. One that I hadn’t considered was why customers that demand 48-hour incident notice from their vendors may be doing themselves a disservice.

CLE WEBINARS

Here are a few of our upcoming training programs, all with CLE (pending) and sponsored by Spellbook.

You can skip the hassle of registering for individual webinars by registering once for all of them. Head over to our webinar page to sign up today!

CONTRACTSCON

We lean into the whole “Con” part of ContractsCon. Never ones to take ourselves or this event seriously, we are all in on the costumes, the fun, and whatever silliness we can add. That’s why I love the new promotional theme around mustaches and monocles. You’ll see our speaker announcements with each person wearing theirs. We’ll also have these waiting for everyone joining us in Philadelphia.

Current ticket prices are locked until July 15. Make sure to sign up before it sells out.

If you plan to ask your manager to approve the spend, we’ve made it easy. Follow this link for a packet of pre-written approval requests in the form of emails and DMs.

OUR SPONSOR

Our sponsor, Spellbook, is offering the contracts community 10% off your first year's subscription if you attend a Spellbook-sponsored webinar or fill out this form. Spellbook offers an incredible legal AI suite for transactional lawyers and legal teams that lets you draft, review, and redline contracts 10x faster, right in Word.

MEME OF THE WEEK

Click the image to read the comments left on my LinkedIn post by a lot of frustrated contract folks.

CONTRACT TIPS

Today's contract tip is about what makes someone a great contract lawyer.

We do not become great because we blindly follow contract academics' instructions on how to write each contract provision. If that were true, we could all be replaced tomorrow with an artificial intelligence contract drafting program.

We do not become great because we memorize the law and know the applicable statutes. If that were true, we would task contract negotiations to law school professors.

Technical drafting skills and knowledge of the law are important. But what differentiates the great contract lawyers is that they understand the psychology part of it.

They know what their counterparts are thinking, what is important to them, how best to communicate with them, and how to build enough rapport to reach an agreement.

Great contract lawyers and professionals know how to apply their knowledge of drafting techniques to make edits that persuade the counterparty.

They know which words to include or omit from a tactical perspective, not just an academic one.

They know how to read the other side to decide when to hold fast and when to concede.

If you want to become a great contract lawyer, don't just focus on the words and the law. You also need to focus on understanding the people involved and their motivations.

What do you see as the most important differentiator between good contract lawyers and great ones?

🥸 Here are a few more tips I recently posted on LinkedIn: