Corporate & Securities Law

How to Introduce a Set of Autonomous Definitions

By Ken Adams

I’m going over one of my contract redrafts. Here’s how I introduced a set of autonomous definitions:

For purposes of this agreement, the following terms have the following meanings:

You see this language, or some variation, in innumerable contracts. I’m not crazy about the way it groups the definitions, thereby leaving open the possibility that one defined term could have more than one meaning. It’s clear that that’s not the case, but I still find it distracting. Saying have the respective meanings given them below, or some such, isn’t much of an improvement.

So how about this:

For purposes of this agreement, the following definitions apply:

Comments, please!

Full post as published by AdamsDrafting on April 29, 2008 (boomark / email).