Legal Contributions to Plain License

We highly value the expertise of legal professionals in ensuring the quality and reliability of Plain License. This guide outlines how lawyers and law-ninjas can contribute their knowledge and skills to our project.

License Contributions and Reviews

Identifying Legal Flaws or Weaknesses

If you believe you’ve identified a potential legal flaw in any of our licenses:

1. Submit a new legal flaw issue ➚.

2. Click on “New Issue”.

3. Use the title format: “Legal Concern: [License Name] - Brief Description”

4. In the body, provide:

   • A clear explanation of the potential flaw
   • The potential implications of this flaw
   • Any suggested corrections or improvements

5. Label the issue with “legal” and “critical” tags.

We take these reports seriously and will review them promptly.

Offering Legal Opinions

For general legal opinions or discussions about our licenses:

1. Visit our GitHub “Lawyer Talk” Discussions page ➚.
2. Start a new discussion.
3. Clearly state the license you’re discussing and your thoughts and opinions.
4. Encourage dialogue by asking questions or suggesting areas for further review.

We encourage robust debate and critical analysis of our licenses. Your insights help us ensure our licenses are as legally sound as possible.

Challenging Our Licenses

We welcome legal professionals to critically examine our licenses. If you see potential issues or areas for improvement:

1. Review the license carefully.
2. Consider edge cases and potential misinterpretations.
3. Analyze how the license might interact with different jurisdictions’ laws.
4. Share your findings through either the Issues ➚ (for clear flaws) or Discussions ➚ (for general concerns or suggestions) as outlined above.

Your efforts to “rip apart” our licenses contribute significantly to their robustness and reliability. We need your creative and critical thinking to help us identify potential weaknesses and improve our licenses.

”But this word has a specific legal meaning!”

Most words in legal documents have specific meanings, and we understand that. We have to balance clarity with legal precision. It isn’t easy. When you find a word that seems too vague or unclear in a legal context, please:

• Explain why the word is problematic.
• Suggest a clearer alternative that maintains the legal meaning, or provide suggestions for how to clarify its use in the context of the license.
• Consider the risk. Is the risk of legal misinterpretation greater than the risk of people not understanding the license? If so, we may need to adjust the language. * Most lawyers are trained to focus on the risk of legal misinterpretation. This risk assessment usually focuses on 'what has worked' before. There are two problems with this approach: (a) It drives lawyers to use complex language and jargon that has been used before, and assumes judges will interpret it the same way — but they don't always. We think plain language is more likely to be interpreted as intended, because it reflects what an average person would understand. (b) It doesn't consider the risk of people not understanding the license, which is a significant risk for most licenses.
• We assume good faith. We think most judges and lawyers will understand our plain language the same way we do. If you disagree, please explain why and suggest a clearer alternative.

501(c)(3) Chartering Assistance

Plain License wants to become a chartered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. We’re looking for people with experience in this area to contribute their expertise.

If you have experience with chartering 501(c)(3) organizations and are interested in helping, please visit our Helping Plain License page for more details on how you can contribute to this important step in our organization’s development.

Professional Conduct and Nature of Contributions

Not Legal Advice

Any contributions, opinions, or suggestions you provide to Plain License are not legal advice and don’t create a lawyer-client relationship. Your contributions are voluntary, informational, and for the benefit of the creative community.

Ethical Considerations

We understand legal advice has specific ethical rules and professional responsibilities. By contributing to Plain License:

1. You understand your contributions are not legal advice.
2. You are not entering into a lawyer-client relationship with Plain License or its users.
3. Your contributions are voluntary and for the benefit of the creative community.
4. You are not providing confidential information or creating conflicts of interest. Your contributions come from general knowledge among lawyers or publicly available information.

Disclaimers

When making contributions, please include a disclaimer. Our templates for Issues ➚ and Discussions ➚ include a standard disclaimer that you can use.

Thank You

We appreciate your expertise and willingness to contribute to Plain License. You help us maintain a valuable resource for the community while respecting the ethical obligations of the legal profession when you follow these guidelines.

Let’s work together to improve Plain License.

Other Writing Contributions

If your contributions are more focused on writing or editing, please see our Crafting Licenses guide for more information on how you can help. We are always looking for clear, concise, and legally accurate language in our licenses.