Preventive Law

Most people agree that it's better not to get sick in the first place, than to have to wheel in the antibiotics on a regular basis. Healthy eating, modest drinking and regular exercise all fall into the 'preventative medicine' category, and are familiar concepts to many of us.

But 'preventive law'? Does this mean jogging while you negotiate? Or 'exercising at the barre' rather than 'practicing at the bar'?

While you won't have encountered the phrase before on this blog, or on our web site, preventive law underpins Devant's entire commercial contract drafting and negotiation methodology. It's based on the concept that we'd rather keep you out of trouble in the first place, rather than having to help you negotiate yourself out of a dispute.

The idea is that by ensuring that everyone in the commercial relationship understands exactly what their obligations are under an agreement, and exactly what they can expect from it, there's a good chance of things going smoothly. So by doing things right from the start, we can prevent disputes further down the line.

This will be familiar ground for anyone who's attended one of our commercial contract training workshops, or even one of our free seminars - the evils of 'small print' feature large in our training presentations! After all, if the client can't actually read your terms, the chances of them complying with them have to be drastically reduced! And the probability of dispute and dissatisfaction are increased in direct proportion.

I've recently linked up with Helena Haapio and Linda Baines, two of the founder members of the ProActive ThinkTank of the International Association of Commercial and Contract Managers (IACCM). Helena and Linda are both highly experienced and enthusiastic proponents of Preventive Law - you can learn more by going to http://www.proactivelaw.org or visiting the web site of the National Center for Preventive Law at the California Western School of Law in San Diego at http://www.preventivelawyer.com/main/default.asp.

Keep in touch to see how Preventive Law will be adding more value to Devant Training and Commercial Management services in 2008.