The one hour webinar David Tollen presented on December 3rd is now available online. Click here to access it through our host, The Western Banker’s Association. The presentation addresses how banks and other tech buyers can get the best terms for cloud computing contracts. It covers key issues at stake…

TEACHING AT UC BERKELEY LAW SCHOOL I am proud to announce that I will soon begin teaching at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Starting in January of 2018, I will teach a course for both J.D. and Ll.M. candidates, called Tech Industry Contracts: Drafting and Negotiating Software Licenses, Cloud Computing Agreements, and Other IT Contracts. The course is a modified version of my comprehensive training on IT agreements, provided through Tech Contracts Academy. (You can learn more here.)

In contracts about complicated services, the hardest terms to draft appear in statements of work. SoW’s for large projects demand long lists of duties from the vendor. And usually they’re interwoven with supporting tasks from the customer, along with countless contingencies, assumptions, and exceptions. Putting all those pieces into an…

Your client or colleagues wants “friendly” contract terms, to avoid offending the other side. For instance, you’re the vendor, and you have two pretty tough-sounding clauses in your standard terms: “Customer will be responsible and liable to Vendor for any misuse of the System by Customer’s users.” “Customer shall indemnify…

Many tech contracts require that one or both parties “comply with applicable law.” Or they require compliance with specific laws, like “all privacy laws and other laws governing the handling of Project Data.” Should you make that promise? What’s Wrong with Promising to Obey Applicable Law? You might point out that that the law is binding anyway, so…

Tech industry professionals use “intellectual property” to describe two different creatures. They also use “IP lawyer” for a broad list of professionals with little in common. …

Last week, I taught a technology contracts masterclass in Kampala, in partnership with the largest bank in Uganda, Stanbic Bank. It was an amazing experience. We had a great audience of 200+ attendees, including lawyers, accountants, and entrepreneurs, and they were very engaged. Thank you so much to the Stanbic Bank team for putting together the training, for taking me on a great tour of the rain forest and the source of the Nile, and for amazingly warm hospitality throughout. It was a gratifying and productive first trip to Africa. I’d love to come back to lead a future session and continue the great discussions.

On Wednesday, I was interviewed on Ugandan television about my training program in Kampala — and about technology agreements in Africa. (This YouTube version seems to pause for a moment after the program’s logo comes up, but it will start again after a few seconds.) I’m honored to be working with Stanbic Bank, our host in Uganda, and with the Kampala technology and legal community!

Your contract’s force majeure clause says hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, and other disasters excuse the vendor’s service obligations. But the contract also has disaster recovery and business continuity terms (which I’ll call “DR/BC” terms). The whole point of those terms is that the vendor’s systems will survive these “acts of God,”…