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by chollida1 6040 days ago
Really? How can you read a legal document that quickly?

If I was signing something that could get me sued in the future, I'd make darn sure that I read it thoroughly before signing!

That's just common sense:)

3 comments

Few people read contracts they sign any more. In most of our (U.S., at least) culture, people no longer view a contract as an agreement between party A and party B, but as a paperwork step that has to be signed as a formality. I think most people don't even read their own employment contracts; they just sign however many places it calls for and move on.

With EULAs and click-through "contracts" devaluing the term, the average person probably signs hundreds of contracts a year, and reads none of them.

I mostly agree with you, but I think it also depends on the types of contracts we're talking about. I definitely read all 20+ pages of my apartment lease before I signed it, but not a word of the iTunes EULA when upgrading it.
You must spend a lot of time reading legal documents then. Damn near everything involves me signing something saying that I can either get sued or can't sue over something.
I don't think it's that many. This year I signed a new credit card contract, contract extension with my landlord, mobile phone contract, some online service direct debit signup and a car rental paperwork. That's it - and I read all of that. I'm not sure a typical person ever goes over 10 things to sign a year... It's not that many and it really pays off to read them before you sign.
It's a half-page NDA. You can read it in about 2 minutes.
So it literally takes 15 seconds to do?