Predictive Contracting

This Article examines how contract drafters can use data on contract outcomes to inform contract design. Building on recent developments in contract data collection and analysis, the Article proposes “predictive contracting,” a new method of contracting in which contract drafters can design contracts using a technology system that helps predict the connections between contract terms and outcomes. Predictive contracting will be powered by machine learning and draw on contract data obtained from integrated contract management systems, natural language processing, and computable contracts. The Article makes both theoretical and practical contributions to the contracts literature. On a theoretical level, predictive contracting can lead to greater customization, increased innovation, more complete contract design, more effective balancing of front-end and back-end costs, better risk assessment and allocation, and more accurate term pricing for negotiation. On a practical level, predictive contracting has the potential to significantly alter the role of transactional lawyers by providing them with access to previously unavailable information on the statistical connections between contract terms and outcomes. In addition to these theoretical and practical contributions, the Article also anticipates and addresses limitations and risks of predictive contracting, including technical constraints, concerns regarding data privacy and confidentiality, the regulation of the unauthorized practice of law and the potential for exacerbating information inequality

Royal Garden Blues

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/6451/thumbnail.jp

Venture Capital Contract Design: An Empirical Analysis of the Connection Between Bargaining Power and Venture Financing Contract Terms

This Article presents an empirical analysis of the connection between bargaining power and contract design using an original dataset of over 5,500 equity and debt venture financings from 2004–2015. Using the total supply of venture capital in the U.S. as a measure of relative bargaining power between entrepreneurs and investors, this Article finds that venture capital supply has a statistically significant relationship with price and non-price terms in both equity and debt financings. These results contradict one of three theoretical accounts of bargaining power and support the other two

Contracts as Systems

A contract is much more complex than its individual terms would suggest. Yet contract scholars have traditionally taken a reductionist approach to the study of contracts. According to contractual reductionism, a contract can be understood through each of its constituent terms. Recent scholarship, however, has begun to challenge contractual reductionism\u27s term-by-term view of contracts. Building on this work, this Article provides the first application of complex systems theory to contracts, arguing that a contract is a complex system that is greater than the sum of its terms. A complex system is composed of many components that interact in a nontrivial manner. Complex systems theory is an interdisciplinaryfi eld of study that has been used to analyze a broad range of complex systems including living organisms, cities, economies, technology systems, and ecosystems. One of the key findings of complex systems theory is that complex systems exhibit a surprising degree of similarity and common behavior across diverse contexts - a finding that holds when extended to contracts. To provide a framework for understanding and analyzing a contract as a complex system, the Article models a contract using concepts drawn from complex systems theory. The Article then uses this model to demonstrate that contract systems exhibit many key properties observed in other complex systems. The Article ends by discussing how a complex systems approach to contracts informs contract design, interpretation, and analysis. The Article makes three primary contributions. First, the Article extends the scholarship challenging contractual reductionism through the first application of complex systems theory to contracts. Second, the Article models a contract as a complex system and identifies key properties of contract systems. Third, the Article shows how complex systems theory can be used to improve the design, interpretation, and analysis of contracts. The Article\u27s findings have significant implications for lawyers, judges, and legal technology companies

Venture Capital Contract Design: An Empirical Analysis of the Connection Between Bargaining Power and Venture Financing Contract Terms

This Article presents an empirical analysis of the connection between bargaining power and contract design using an original dataset of over 5,500 equity and debt venture financings from 2004–2015. Using the total supply of venture capital in the U.S. as a measure of relative bargaining power between entrepreneurs and investors, this Article finds that venture capital supply has a statistically significant relationship with price and non-price terms in both equity and debt financings. These results contradict one of three theoretical accounts of bargaining power and support the other two

I Ain\u27t Gonna Give Nobody None O\u27 This Jellyroll

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/5540/thumbnail.jp

Holey goats: multiple cases of supratrochlear foramina in the humerus of caprines from the New Kingdom pharaonic town of Amara West, northern Sudan

Supratrochlear foramina (STF) were recorded in fifteen per cent of goat and sheep/goat humeri from the New Kingdom pharaonic town of Amara West, in modern northern Sudan. To the authors’ knowledge, this trait has never before been reported in the published literature for goats or sheep, whether from archaeological or modern contexts. The aim of this work is twofold: to contribute to the growing corpus of studies addressing the incidence and aetiology of STF, and to raise awareness for their possible presence in caprines, thus encouraging their identification and recording in archaeological assemblages

Exclusion zone phenomena in water -- a critical review of experimental findings and theories

The existence of the exclusion zone (EZ), a layer of water in which plastic microspheres are repelled from hydrophilic surfaces, has now been independently demonstrated by several groups. A better understanding of the mechanisms which generate EZs would help with understanding the possible importance of EZs in biology and in engineering applications such as filtration and microfluidics. Here we review the experimental evidence for EZ phenomena in water and the major theories that have been proposed. We review experimental results from birefringence, neutron radiography, nuclear magnetic resonance, and other studies. Pollack and others have theorized that water in the EZ exists has a different structure than bulk water, and that this accounts for the EZ. We present several alternative explanations for EZs and argue that Schurr's theory based on diffusiophoresis presents a compelling alternative explanation for the core EZ phenomenon. Among other things, Schurr's theory makes predictions about the growth of the EZ with time which have been confirmed by Florea et al. and others. We also touch on several possible confounding factors that make experimentation on EZs difficult, such as charged surface groups, dissolved solutes, and adsorbed nanobubbles.Comment: 14 pg