John Cage Meets Goldilocks – Deciding Much Detail Should be in a Contract

Like many classical music compositions, John Cage's ORGAN²/ASLSP has a tempo marking for its title. What's unusual is that the title stands for "As Slow as Possible." Cage is known for exploring silence in music, and the first note of As Slow as Possible is silent – a rest. The current performance of As Slow as Possible in Halberstadt, Germany has taken both Cage's tempo marking and the exploration of the silence indicated by that initial rest to an extreme.

Halberstadt is where the first organ with a contemporary key layout was installed in 1361. When the decision was made in 2001 to perform Cage's piece on that organ, a group of musicians, philosophers, and others considered what "as slow as possible" could mean for an organ, which can sustain notes for a much longer period of time. The group decided that since the organ was 639 years old, that was how long the performance of Cage's piece should last. In that context, that single inaugural rest lasted 17 months.

For most of us, ASAP means the opposite: hurry up and rush to completion. In contrast, Cage's ASLSP asks for patience – which in Halberstadt means has been taken to an extreme. Yet neither extreme is usually right. Moving too quickly can leave important questions unanswered. Moving too slowly can turn a useful project into an academic exercise.

Attorneys face a similar question of "how much is enough" when preparing contracts. A contract with too little detail leaves too much to memory, goodwill, or later discussion. A contract with too much detail can become expensive, confusing, and hard to use.

With the advent of AI, it’s tempting to think of contract drafting as a fast process that can be completed without the benefit of an attorney. However, most contracts clients generate with AI are little more than a standard form with the blanks filled in. AI rarely engages in artful legal drafting resulting in a document customized to the circumstances – and I’ve never seen artful drafting when a non-attorney used AI to create legal documents.

Artful legal drafting involves not just memorializing the parties' intentions but also finding the proper amount of detail, pacing, so to speak, to meet the context of the arrangement. Unlike the performance of Cage's piece, the point of contract drafting isn't to explore the furthest edge of what's appropriate. The goal is a "Goldilocks agreement." It shouldn't be as short as possible nor as long as possible – it should be "just right."

This article is part of a series about the Art of Law and discusses deciding how much detail to include in a contract.

Attorney as Clairvoyant

One of the easiest mistakes in contract drafting is including more detail than necessary. A long contract may seem thorough, but unnecessary detail can be counterproductive.

A provision can cover every detail and take up an entire page and still leave the parties with entirely different understandings of what was agreed. Meanwhile, a single carefully written sentence can settle an issue that would otherwise be buried under paragraphs of explanation. Contracts become harder to use when they repeat the same obligation in different words, define terms inconsistently, or obscure an important requirement with tedious detail. Artful legal drafting comes from making good decisions about when—and when not—to add detail.

The Halberstadt performance of ASLSP will outlast everyone involved in starting it and will almost certainly encounter unexpected developments along the way. Contracts usually aren't planned on a 639-year timeline, but even a one- or two-year agreement may outlast the personnel, assumptions, and expectations that existed when it was signed.

I often tell clients that I don't own a crystal ball. The reality, though, is that lawyers have to attempt to be clairvoyant when preparing contracts. That's because details matter most in the future—when something unexpected happens, when the parties discover they didn't have a meeting of the minds on a provision, when key personnel have changed, or when one side decides the arrangement no longer serves its interests.

The trick isn't predicting everything that could happen. That's impossible. The trick is identifying the questions that are most likely to matter later and answering them while everyone is still on the same page.

When is Detail Important?

With that in mind, not every part of a contract deserves equal attention. The attorney's job is to identify where misunderstandings, problems, or disputes are most likely to occur and address those areas.

The most attention should go to key provisions – what I call "what's being bought/sold and how much is being paid for it." What's included will vary depending on the type of contract.

For example, in a services agreement, that would be the scope of work and how and when compensation is paid. For a band agreement, the contract would include what each member is expected to contribute in time and skills to the band and how they will share income and expenses. In a real estate purchase contract, key provisions would include a clear description of the real estate and any personal property being sold, along with the purchase price and any mortgage assumption.

The next level of focus should be on provisions that are particularly important to these parties in these circumstances. In a services agreement, confidentiality or exclusivity may be a major concern. In a band agreement, ownership of intellectual property is often critical. In a real estate transaction, the bigger concerns may involve due diligence, remedies after closing, or default provisions.

Context determines what deserves detail in a contract. There isn't a universal checklist that applies equally to every transaction, and that's one reason contract drafting requires judgment.

How Lawyers Decide What Deserves More Detail

Clients sometimes assume that adding more detail automatically makes a contract better. Sometimes, that's true, but detail added without context can create internal inconsistencies and conflicts in a contract.

Drafting contracts is as much an exercise in deciding what to leave out as it is deciding what to include. Every relationship contains an almost endless number of details and possible contingencies that could be addressed in a contract if time and money were unlimited. Artful legal drafting involves making educated choices based on what’s important to the client and the specific relationship.

When attorneys start asking a seemingly endless series of "what if" questions, we're not necessarily pessimists — we’re trying to identify the future circumstances most likely to create confusion, disagreement, or litigation. We're looking for language and situations where even reasonable people may later discover they had very different assumptions about the relationship. At the same time, we’re evaluating which of the endless possibilities matter the most to our client.

The purpose of those questions isn't to predict every possible future event. It's to determine which future events are most likely to matter. Experience teaches attorneys that certain issues come up over and over. The goal is to identify those likely pressure points and address them so that everyone is on the same page before they become problems.

At some point, however, more detail stops creating clarity and starts creating noise. There's always another hypothetical that could be addressed. There's always another contingency someone could imagine. If attorneys attempted to answer every conceivable question, even simple contracts would become unmanageable monstrosities.

On the other hand, sometimes a relatively short agreement is inadequate because it glosses over issues that are central to the arrangement. The question isn't whether a contract is long or short. The question is whether the detail serves a purpose in the context of the relationship.

A contract can be lengthy and still fail to address the issues that actually matter, or a concise agreement can work very well if it focuses on the things most likely to affect the parties' relationship in the future. The goal isn't to include the maximum detail possible — it’s to identify and include useful detail.

Context Determines the Right Amount of Detail

One reason legal drafting is harder than it looks is that there's rarely a single correct answer. A provision that is appropriate in one transaction may be unnecessary or even harmful in another.

Consider two service agreements. On the surface, they may look almost identical. One, however, may involve parties who've worked together successfully for years and have developed a high degree of trust. The other may involve parties who have never met before and are undertaking a complicated project with significant financial consequences. It shouldn't be surprising that the appropriate level of detail may differ considerably between those two situations.

The duration of a relationship also may affect contract provisions. Some agreements involve assets, intellectual property, or business arrangements that may continue for years after the contract is signed. Others may involve a discrete project that’s likely to be completed within a matter of weeks. Some relationships require flexibility because circumstances are likely to change. Others benefit from greater specificity because consistency is important.

That's why drafting can't be reduced to filling in a template or an AI-generated form. The attorney's role is to evaluate the transaction, the parties, and the risks and determine which details are worth addressing. The exercise is inherently forward-looking because the lawyer is trying to identify the questions that future versions of the parties may wish they'd answered.

In that respect, contract drafting resembles the Halberstadt performance of ASLSP. The people who began that performance understood that the people and performers experiencing the performance wouldn't be the same people who started it. Contracts may not be intended to last 639 years, but they frequently outlive the assumptions, personnel, and circumstances that existed when they were created.

The challenge is in providing enough guidance for future circumstances without creating unnecessary constraints. Like Goldilocks, the attorney is looking for an option that's neither too much nor too little, but just right for the situation.

Conclusion

With Cage's ASLSP, a simple instruction resulted in an academic discussion about what that instruction actually meant. The result may seem extreme, but it was carefully considered in the context of the historic Halberstadt organ.

It's likely that another performance of ASLSP would be a different length. Suppose, for example, a performance were planned on the Davis-Ferris organ in Round Lake, New York. That organ was built in 1847 and is now the oldest surviving pipe organ of its type in the US. If that performance lasted as long as the organ's history, it would be a mere 179 years. Neither that decision nor the Halberstadt decision would be wrong; each would simply reflect a different context.

Contract drafting requires a similar analysis. Contracts aren’t one-size-fits-all. They shouldn't be short merely for the sake of brevity, nor should they be long with the guise of being thorough. Instead, they should address the issues most likely to matter for these parties, in that particular transaction, under these circumstances. This is the artistic value an attorney adds to a contract that AI can’t replicate from a simple prompt asking for a contract.

Like the musicians in Halberstadt, lawyers are trying to make decisions today that will govern future developments in a relationship. Lawyers can't predict every future development, and we shouldn't try. What we can do is identify the concerns most likely to arise, give those issues the attention they deserve, and avoid cluttering the agreement with details that don't meaningfully advance the parties' goals.

The best contracts aren't the shortest or the longest. They're the agreements that contain enough detail to guide the parties through the future issues they're most likely to encounter, without becoming so detailed that they lose sight of what matters. The art of drafting contracts lies in finding the amount of detail that's "just right” and requires the skill of an experienced attorney who takes the time to understand the parties and their relationship.

© 2026 by Elizabeth A. Whitman

Any references to clients and their legal situations have been modified to protect client confidentiality.

DISCLAIMER: The content of this blog is for informational purposes only and does not provide legal advice to any person. No one should take any action regarding the information in this blog without first seeking the advice of an attorney. Neither reading this blog nor communication with Whitman Legal Solutions, LLC or Elizabeth A. Whitman creates an attorney-client relationship. No attorney-client relationship will exist with Whitman Legal Solutions, LLC has or any attorney affiliated with it unless a written contract is signed by all parties.