[catillac]

You’re right mostly. It is about reaching a meeting of the minds. And law isn’t some thing with “loopholes” and “one weird tricks” but contracts generally contain integration clauses that state that the entirety of the agreement is contained inside the language of the signed contract itself. What this means is that as long as the terms are not illegal (such as usurious interest rates or run afoul of consumer protection laws or any number of other things), typically if it’s in the contract, it’s enforced. This manifests itself in situations where someone will cross out clauses that they object to before signing and those clauses don’t have any effect given they’re stricken, or where things are added and then enforced.

This creates a little need for trust among legal peers because this sort of thing can happen if one is not careful, but in a professional environment adding in things randomly is a serious breach of trust.