[tptacek]

Sorry, I just meant: "a more conscientious lawyer could have straightforwardly drafted that contract to avoid some of its major problems". Like, the subtext of the question is, if I was MongoDB, and stipulating that I didn't create unreasonable work conditions like "get it done in a day", should I be pissed at my lawyer?

Additional question: if you can fix that problem with the contract with a "to the extent possible" predicate, is that really not the default? Like, if a clause can be interpreted as requiring the impossible, even if a straightforward alternate interpretation doesn't, that clause is broken?

[DannyBee]

Yes, they could have. So yes, you should be pissed at your lawyer if they didn't warn you.

In my experience, the lawyers mostly warned the clients and the clients did it anyway.

Part of being a lawyer is simultaneously taking the blame for stuff like that while having done very careful diligence so that your malpractice insurance rates don't go up from clients successfully suing you :)