This is a quick question for all of the attorneys out there. When your client asks you to draft a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to silence his mistress about their illicit affair, do you click on LegalZoom, or formsRus to get the document? Do you reach into his file, grab one of the previously filed forms and modify it as necessary? Or, do you draft a new NDA for this particular instance? In other words, is your Non-Disclosure Agreement boilerplate?
I only ask because there are some interesting clauses in the NDA between Peggy Peterson (AKA Stephanie Clifford, AKA Stormy Daniels) and David Dennison (AKA John Miller, AKA John Baron, AKA Donald Trump). There has been a lot of speculation that Ms. Clifford might have pictures with her when she appears next week on 60 Minutes. There is little doubt that she has tangible proof of the affair. The NDA includes “certain still images and/or text messages which were authored by or relate to DD”. In other words, our guy at 1600 may have been texting his mistress during the affair. We all know how much he likes to Tweet. Did he privately (?) send her sweet nothings in 140 characters? But there is more.
Stormy Daniels (she does appear to prefer her nom de porn) can not disclose “paternity information” and she is also barred from discussing “alleged children”. At this point, her attorney has been brushing these clauses aside and stating that they aren’t relevant to the case.
But if you look at this from a few steps back, you have more to wonder if among Attorney Cohen’s sins of possible campaign finance law, sloppiness, and threats, if he has now been caught charging a ridiculous fee per hour to generate legal boilerplate.
DAVE
Picture – Step 1 – David L Cunix
David – Having an undergraduate degree from Purdue University does not make me an automatic expert on Boilerplate, just because I am a Boilermaker. However my contract professor told us on the first day of class that nobody is supposed to bother reading boilerplate.
More importantly it is a little known fact that NDA could stand for three different things:
1) Non-Disclosure Agreement
2) No Dossier Actually
3) Never Donald Again
Supporters of David Dennison, John Miller, John Baron and The Donald are very sympathetic, especially upon learning that Melania can say “Not Tonight Bozo” in five different languages.
Are talking heads on cable news permitted to say “titillating” and what exactly is the origin of that word anyway?
I ran out of random thoughts.
I was counting on you as an attorney and as a Boilermaker to provide content, if not context. DAVE