Law College Dehradun, organized a National Webinar on ‘Contract Drafting and Review’ on 19th July, 2020 with Ms. Mini Gyan Gautam as the Keynote Speaker. Ms. Gautam, Partner, AQUILAW, completed her graduation from ILS Pune and Masters in International Financial Law from King’s College, London. She has over 10 years of experience; her areas of specialization are General Corporate and Commercial Contracts, M&A, Intellectual Property Rights, Data Protection and Privacy, Infrastructure and Project Financing, Real Estate, Fund Raising and Labour Laws. Prior to joining AQUILAW as their Corporate Partner, she was associated with the National Stock Exchange of India as Senior Legal Manager. She has been associated with and has advised various other companies and start-ups on legal, statutory, regulatory and compliance requirements.
The session commenced with Ms. Gautam’s brief proem about the methods and implications of Contract Drafting and fundamental expertise elementary to it. She tried to instill some mental checklists to attune the mind towards contract mapping. She also stated that in order to frame a full skeletal structure to the contract, discussions over commercial aspects of the draft becomes a pre-requisite. She then proceeded to explain the complexities that arise with different aspects of an effective draft which involve the parties to the contract, the Definition and Interpretation Sections followed by the grammatical and punctuation errors that may alter the intended results. Making interpretations easy and avoiding ambiguity and at the same time understanding the very scope of the draft along with roles and obligations of the parties to the contract was also stressed on.
The session advanced with Ms. Gautam drawing attention to more intricate details involved in a contract drafting such as representation and warranties, the confidentiality clauses, preparation for exit strategies in a worst case scenario, etc. She also stated that nature of requirements determines specifications of the contract; therefore terms of a contract along with time limit and grounds for extermination must be defined punctiliously. As the session moved along, topics such as governing law of a contract, dispute resolution processes, fault based- termination, consistency checks of a contract and cross-referencing were discussed at length.
The latter half of the event had the Keynote Speaker taking up doubts and queries of the participants. The audience showcased a wide diversity with not only students but also academicians & eminent personalities from India and abroad actively engaging in discussing the nuances & intricacies of the topic. Ms. Gautam took up queries related to technological tools to improve contract drafting skills, life-cycle of a contract, force majeure events, career opportunities in Contract Drafting and many more. She concluded the session by addressing the Global Pandemic and how amendments could be brought up post Covid-19 period in order to tackle such unprecedented situations.
The enriching session concluded with the Vote of Thanks delivered on behalf of the Organizing Committee of Training and Recruitment Division, Law College Dehradun, Uttaranchal University.
TRD – Contract Drafting and Review – Web report (With photos) – Click Here To View
