[Foundation-l] Board statement of responsibility

[Ray Saintonge]

Birgitte SB wrote:
> --- On Wed, 5/21/08, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   
>> Hmmm. Agree.
>> I actually forwarded to Sue a sample of a document I felt
>> roughly 
>> confortable with, and it seems that Mike used that document
>> to improve 
>> the second draft significantly (which is cool). However,
>> there was no 
>> significant change on the non disparagement part and the
>> COI suddenly 
>> appeared expanded.
>> So, I am all for your suggest Birgitte, but I can not
>> really comment 
>> from draft 1 to draft 2 if no significant change has been
>> made.
>>
>> Also, as Ec points out completely properly, besides the
>> lack of clarify 
>> to describe what disparagement means, there is no
>> clarification of what 
>> would happen IF the agreement was breached.
>>
>> In a rather humourous point, this is something I noted and
>> told Mike 
>> some months ago: similarly, the COI policy requires from
>> members to 
>> disclose information, but there is no outlined procedure to
>> deal in case 
>> of an abuse.
>>
>> I do not think the agreement is the arena of lawyers. I am
>> no lawyer 
>> myself, I do not have the money to pay a lawyer to provide
>> me 
>> counselling, and still, I would be the one to sign. When a
>> HUMAN must 
>> sign a document involving himself and his family, for
>> several years, I 
>> think it is not only a lawyer business...
>>     
>
> Just to clarify (in case anyone is confused) I would classify the back and forth negotiations about the ways which an individual trustee is willing to bind herself as within the arena of lawyers, leaving plenty of other things for the peanut gallery to comment on. 
>
> Frankly Anthere, if I were being asked to sign something like this I *would* retain a lawyer.  Granted I am much more cautious than most people, but I would not consider signing such a contract without the advice of a lawyer whose duty is to look after my interests.  It would be nice if people didn't have pay lawyers to advise them, but it is not worth the risk, in my opinion, to sign something just because you trust that the guy who wrote it is a good lawyer that will protect his client (and the client is not *you*).
>   
That's an important observation.  We too often sign things without 
paying any attention to the wording, much of which can be in very fine 
or half-screen print.  We don't even read the part that acknowledges 
reading and understanding.  I consider my language skills excellent, but 
wading through some of this stuff is not easy.  I don't know how those 
with poor language ability can manage.
> I am not qualified to evaluate such a document.  I trust Mike to do a great job looking out for WMF, but the interests of the WMF are not necessarily the interests of her trustees nor should they be. If I were a trustee and the WMF presented me with this draft (ignoring for this thought exercise all the community and value issues worth discussing) I would say, "Thank you I will pass this on to my lawyer."  If WMF tried to discuss it I would say "Here's my lawyer's number."  And after the lawyers hashed out something I was advised by my own personal lawyer to sign, I would sign it.  I agree that signing such a document is serious and would involve me and my family for years, so I would take it seriously. 
> Plus I wouldn't want to risk poisoning any working relationships by taking on the dirty work of protecting myself. So that means leaving it in the arena lawyers in my book.  But that is me, and I'm paranoid about signing my name. :) 
Most of these agreements do not lead to disputes, because the majority 
tend to act in good faith even without the agreement.  I could say, I'll 
sign it because I know it means nothing and cannot be enforced, but 
there's a fundamental dishonesty about that approach that makes me 
uncomfortable.  When it comes down to the agreement Mike cannot 
represent both the Foundation and the individual trustee about this 
since that would be a conflict of interest.

Ec

Ec