Corporate & Securities Law

Watch Out for Metadata

By Ken Adams

I don’t exchange drafts with people on the other side of a transaction, so generally I don’t have to worry about metadata. But if unlike me you actually do deals, you should be attuned to the risks of metadata and how to stay out of trouble.

So you might want to read a new article on the subject by law-technology guy Nerino Petro and Bryan Sims of The Connected Lawyer blog; click here to go to a copy. Don’t know what metadata is? The article describes it as “information about an electronic file that is not readily apparent simply by viewing the file.” Of course, that’s rather cryptic considered in isolation?for more, read the article.

Another helpful resource is a 2006 white paper by Donna Payne of PayneGroup; click here to go to a PDF copy.

If you know of any metadata literature that’s geared to the needs of people who work with contracts, please post a comment.

By the way, in this post I treat metadata as a mass noun taking the singular. Garner’s Modern American Usage says that “in more or less formal contexts [data] is preferably treated as a plural,” but it goes on to say, “One context in which the singular use of data might be allowed is in computing and allied disciplines.”

Full post as published by AdamsDrafting on June 18, 2010 (boomark / email).