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Comment by mbreese | Hacker News Reader

I completely agree.

When I bought a house (and later sold it), the day before, we had the title company forward all of the documents to our lawyer to review. When he gave his okay, I felt perfectly comfortable signing multiple documents that I never read.

For something like that, it's important to have someone with some knowledge go over things first. Was I really going to be in a position to slowly read over documents for 3 hours and potentially hold up closing just because I didn't understand a contract? No. So, it's best to let a lawyer do his/her job.

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I remember when I bought a house I had to sign tens of such notices and notices about signing notices, etc. Worse yet, I was actually provided with all the documents I was supposed to review, and they literally were a pile several inches high. And most of it was completely 100% useless at worst and duplicating what my agent already told me about 10 times at best and what I already read about in various disclosure forms (which I had to sign too, of course). It took me hours to get through it and by the end of it my hand hurt from all signing I had to do. Some politicians did some major CYA work there, I'm sure.

It's better than not reading it, but you still don't really know what you're signing. Maybe there's some catch or you're on the hook for something and the lawyer doesn't say anything (or even notice) because it's relatively standard for that kind of contract?

Probably a better use of time and money is to have them forward the documents to you, read over them the day before and ask a lawyer if you have any questions.

Except, I'm not a lawyer... so if there is something, then I probably wouldn't catch it either. At some point, you have to trust professionals to do their job.

Buying a house is a bit different though, because you have the purchase agreement and then you have the contracts you sign at closing. We examined the purchase agreement in depth with our lawyer, since that is what sets the context for the rest of the transaction documents. However, once that was out of the way, there was no need for us to read anything - so long as our lawyer signed off on it.

It also depends on how much you trust your lawyer...

> Except, I'm not a lawyer... so if there is something, then I probably wouldn't catch it either. At some point, you have to trust professionals to do their job.

Right, which is why I suggested asking a lawyer if anything in the contract was unclear.

IMO, it seems like having the lawyer read it without reading it yourself is just deferring the decision to the lawyer. How can you convey to the lawyer what you're okay agreeing too, and what you would take issue with? What are you getting out of it above and beyond the "Everybody signs it, so it can't be too bad," approach?

What if, after signing the contract, you find out there's a clause you disagree with, but the lawyer tells you, "Oh, I didn't think you'd mind because that clause is in all of the contracts like this and everybody else is always okay with it."

Maybe it really just depends on how well a person knows and trusts their lawyer?

If your lawyer misses something that does material affect you it is considered legal malpractice. Lawyers can and have been sued over this.

Legalese might hide problematic things without your knowing about it. It may very well take a lawyer to spot those issues in the first place, lines which you might gloss over as harmless.

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