Understanding is beyond the scope of what I'd like to see fixed in contract law. The idea is that if you have a 5 page contract, it should have taken at least 8 minutes[1] to read regardless of if it is legalease or written in a plain style.
It's a lower bound. Failure to satisfy that bound can then be seen as prima facie evidence that the has not been a "meeting of the minds", due to one party being given sufficient time to even read the contract.
As I tried to imply, there are various configurable details here that would need to be negotiated; I just believe that some sort of minimum bound should be established in law. The alternative is to allow the current trend of de facto contracts of adhesion to grow.
[1] or whatever the length of time is calculated to be - I just made up this number
So effectively, the individual signing must spend 8 minutes doing nothing but looking at the contract (even if they are daydreaming). I can see where this is would be a concrete improvement, even if just a minor one to a much larger problem.
It's a lower bound. Failure to satisfy that bound can then be seen as prima facie evidence that the has not been a "meeting of the minds", due to one party being given sufficient time to even read the contract.
As I tried to imply, there are various configurable details here that would need to be negotiated; I just believe that some sort of minimum bound should be established in law. The alternative is to allow the current trend of de facto contracts of adhesion to grow.
[1] or whatever the length of time is calculated to be - I just made up this number