From a tough lesson on drafting contracts to reports on risk and regulation, Ben Wheway rounds up the most popular briefings and key statistics from Legal Week Law over the last quarter

The practice of law is often maligned – and sometimes fairly so – as overly complex and inaccessible, with its use of arcane language, dense documents and labyrinthine legislation. But the issues that engage lawyers on a day-to-day basis are often the most simplistic, and, as the most popular briefings on Legal Week Law demonstrate, subjects as straightforward as clear communication, signatures and getting names right remain just as much of interest as ever.

The doctrine of misnomer was thrown into the spotlight last year by the case of Liberty Mercian v Cuddy Civil Engineering, which was covered by Macfarlanes in its briefing 'Mistaken identity – the importance of getting names right in contracts', which proved to be one of the top 10 most popular downloads during the last three months of 2013.

The case centred around a construction contract in which Liberty's legal advisers had mistakenly named a dormant company as the contractor after running a Companies House search. As Macfarlanes explained, the judge ruled that it was not a clear mistake, emphasising the high threshold that must be surpassed to persuade the court, and providing a harsh lesson for the lawyers in question.

The importance of absolute clarity in contracts was also starkly illustrated by the second-most popular download during Q4 2013 – Wragge & Co's 'Why clear drafting matters: a case lost by both sides?', which documented a case in which the two parties had failed to clearly record what they had agreed in their rush to sign binding agreements.

The dispute, between Singapore-based online estate agency AllProperty Media and corporate adviser Alegro Capital, saw both sides left hundreds of thousands of pounds out of pocket because of misunderstandings over what they believed Alegro's engagement letter actually said.

Wragges' report on the case was pipped to the top spot for the quarter by Shoosmiths' briefing on electronic signatures, which garnered more than 600 downloads. The article, which looked at recent movements away from the traditional 'wet' signature for corporate deals, provided a succinct overview of the ongoing efforts to find a suitable 'e-alternative' to the handwritten version – a development described as "necessary to the continued growth and development of e-commerce".

The article illustrates how, despite the rapid development of technology and the profession's best efforts at modernisation, traditional practices are still firmly embedded in the way lawyers work, and, as such, progress will often be slow.

Legal Week Law also continues to serve as a great forum for more wide-ranging projects, with Berwin Leighton Paisner partner Matthew Whalley's latest legal risk report, 'Unknown unknowns – why company executives cannot afford to ignore legal risk', also featuring highly among the quarter's top 10 downloads. 

The study, which drew on the responses of 100 CEOs, senior in-house lawyers and compliance professionals, found that 80% of company executives have little or no confidence in their organisation's ability to manage emerging legal risk – a subject on which relatively scant attention has been focused to date.

Similar subjects were also addressed by Winston & Strawn's international business risk survey, the results of which provided the basis for the firm's well-read report 'Compete and comply – the four key business risk concerns for corporate counsel'.

The report, which was broken down into four sections – data protection, competition regulation, bribery and corruption, and joint ventures and strategic alliances in emerging markets – shed light on the primary concerns keeping senior in-house counsel awake at night.

The top concerns identified by the report included: customer data issues, including security and data usage risks; loss of brand equity and/or consumer confidence; vertical agreements with suppliers and competitors; and differing cultural practices in high-growth markets such as those in the Asia-Pacific region.

Risk and regulatory concerns in emerging markets were also tackled by the latest in Pinsent Masons' 'Don't make a drama out of a crisis' series, which emphasised the importance of internal investigations, as enforcement activity continues to rise in the wake of the enactment of the Bribery Act, a subject of enduring interest on Legal Week Law.

And rounding off the top 10 downloads for Q4 2013 was the latest updated edition of Latham & Watkins' ever-popular glossary of global M&A jargon, which – with handy definitions of terms such as bear hugs, BIMBOs, cramdowns and creepers – proves that even though the simplest concepts may be the most popular, an encylopaedic resource of technical terminology is still an essential part of the modern lawyer's desktop.

Click here to view the most popular downloads in numbers.

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