Handbrake Lawyers: How to Get Your Deal Moving - Part 2/3

See last week for Part 1.

We received the first draft on the Thursday or Friday, we produced an internal version of the heads over the weekend, we had a call over the weekend to make sure everyone on our side was happy with them, and sent them across on Monday.

Silence.

It then turns out the other side’s external lawyer didn’t want a meeting (don’t ask me why), and was going to produce another draft. We tried to persuade our commercial contacts on the other side that this was not an efficient approach, but they felt they couldn’t overrule their lawyer. (Presumably, this was something to do with legal mystique – see Part 1).

A week later, another draft appears. It was a bit better than the previous one, but not by much. The external lawyer still did not understand the commercials and was just taking a wild guess at what they should be.

Plan A having failed, we switch to plan B: marking-up the draft. We did this in double-quick time (the clock is ticking), we have an internal call to make sure everyone’s happy with it, and off it goes.

Luckily, our commercial guys manage to get on a call with their opposite numbers (without the lawyer present) and take them through the changes we’ve made. It all makes sense to them: they agree to put a call in to their external lawyers and tell them that they are OK with the changes, and that we have passed the point for more mark-ups.

A few days later, we get the latest draft. All our changes have been accepted: there are some changes, but nothing we can’t live with. The contract gets signed.

Part 3 next week.

31st March 2026