CONTRACT IDEAS WORTH SHARING
Do your AI warranties focus on the wrong thing?
Traditional software warranty approaches don’t fit AI products. Yesterday's webinar with Laura Belmont and Matt Kohel on this topic made that clear. Both speakers kept returning to the same starting point. Before anyone drafts the warranty, someone has to figure out what the AI product is supposed to do. Use the six-part framework to make sure you address the critical elements.
VIDEO LESSON
How customers can protect themselves from service problems with SaaS platforms
In this session from ContractsCon 2025, Kay Lee, VP, Legal at Curology, redlines a SaaS master services agreement from the customer side. She works through the uptime guarantee, scheduled downtime notice, service credits, a termination right for repeated failures, online terms incorporated by link, and a business continuity section. For each provision she shows the vendor's language, her edits, the vendor's response, and why she accepts or pushes back.
CONTRACTSCON 2026
ContractsCon 2026 starts in four weeks
Join us in Philadelphia on October 13-14, 2026 or virtually on October 21-22, 2026 for two days of contract training with speakers in costume, practical sessions, and a room full of people who negotiate contracts for a living.
FREE CONTRACT TRAINING
Upcoming CLE webinars
Register for an upcoming webinar by clicking the webinar entry. You can also sign up for our automatic option that registers you for every webinar with two weeks to watch the replay.
FROM OUR SPONSOR
Free contract checklist with 25+ critical terms to review
This guide from Spellbook, our sponsor, includes an eight-step contract review checklist covering 25+ terms, from party identification and payment provisions through liability, compliance, termination, and dispute resolution. It adds quick-reference checklists for NDAs, vendor agreements, employment contracts, and SaaS subscriptions, plus a list of red flags to escalate. The full checklist is available as a print-ready PDF download.
MEME OF THE WEEK
Contract negotiation drama is so exhausting
If only there was an Oscar for best moral outrage during a contract negotiation. Of course, the most impressive performances always come when their clients are also on the call.
CONTRACT TIP
5 arguments customers use when negotiating limits of liability
This contract tip identifies some frequent arguments that customers use when negotiating limits of liability.
Customers purchase goods and services from vendors, which often have incorporated into or built the product using goods and services from their suppliers. But the customer has contractual privity only with the vendor, so the customer has to look to its contractual counterparty for any remedies.
On top of that, some customers that act as resellers are the last in the line before a product reaches the consumer. The law limits how much a vendor to consumers can insulate itself from liability so that the last purchaser before the consumer sits with a lot of risk. In addition to the legal restrictions, customers also face sophisticated end-use customers that refuse any effort to shift risk to them.
This sandwich of risk, with their vendors shifting risk to customers and the customers not able to shift risks to its customers, leaves the customer exposed.
It is no wonder that customers try to shift risk to their vendors and preserve as many remedies as they can in their contracts. They know they may be left bearing all that risk.
Those reasons outlined are why customers need to manage their risk closely. Here are some common arguments customers make to their vendors during negotiations:
You are selling a product, so you should bear all the risks relating to what you sold us.
We should not have any liability for problems with what you provide to us.
We accept liability from our customers when we sell. We can't also take on your liability when we purchase from you.
We are paying you in part to stand behind your product and take the risks.
You as the seller are in a better position to mitigate and manage risks.
What other arguments do you see in your contracts? Which arguments resonate the most with you as a vendor or customer?
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If you prefer training events, I hope you’ll join us at ContractsCon, our annual contract training extravaganza. We’ll be in Philadelphia on October 13-14, 2026 and virtually on October 21-22, 2026. The training is sophisticated, the speakers’ costumes are ridiculous, and the connections are real. Click here to learn more about ContractsCon 2026 in Philadelphia.
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