Write Like It Will Be Read in Court — a Contracts Desk's Rules for the AI Era

I read contracts the way an inspector reads flashing details: assuming water will find the gap. In the AI era, the gaps are multiplying — and most firms are writing themselves into them.

Three rules we follow at Nexen

1. Never let a machine speak in your contractual voice unreviewed. An AI-drafted email that promises a date, waives a condition, or characterizes a delay is a statement your company made. Every outbound document that touches obligations gets human review here — the tool drafts, a person commits.

2. Document contemporaneously, because memories lose. Daily records, dated photos, transmittals with timestamps. When a dispute surfaces two years later, the side with the organized record writes the narrative. AI has made assembling that record nearly free; there is no longer any excuse for a thin file.

3. Respect marks and claims — yours and everyone else's. We write "engineered to meet," not "guaranteed." We name products accurately, credit trademarks properly, and never publish a performance claim we can't substantiate. The same discipline protects our own marks and methods as the company grows.

The quiet advantage

None of this is glamorous, and that's the point: the firms that get documentation and language right are the ones you never read about in case reports. Every Nexen teammate operates under a measured work-style profile (AIRE Assessment) — mine is the one that asks, about every sentence: can you defend it? If the answer isn't yes, we rewrite it before anyone else ever sees it.