Derek M. Tyler

I was born in Newark, New Jersey, a long time ago. I was raised on Miami Beach. I have been practicing law in Florida since 1998. I am, what you might call, a commercial or transactional attorney, structuring deals, negotiating and drafting the contracts that embody those deals, and advising clients, both domestic and foreign, public and private. I have also served as correspondent and paralegal to major national law firms on contract matters, negotiating (and litigation) since 1987 while assistant to the Senior Corporate Attorney (In-House Counsel) for DWG Corporation and it's affiliated parent companies and their subsidiaries, including Sharon Steel Corporation and it's railroad, mining and metallurgic manufacturing subsidiaries, before obtaining my license to practice law in 1998.

To be an effective transactional attorney requires talents that differ mightily from those required to be an effective litigator. Unlike litigation, a business deal is not -- well, at least it should not be -- a confrontational event. It is an undertaking to build an "agree"ment that benefits all parties.

A contract is simply a set of instructions. Like plans to build a bridge or a computer program to operate a system, a contract is simply the design and rules for a business relationship such as a partnership, or employment or shareholder arrangements, or for a business deal such as the sale of a business, ship, cargo, equipment or the lease of equipment.

I DO NOT use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the drafting of any document or commercial agreement.

"Proofreading, The Evil Corollary", NYSBA Journal, January 1994. : When the financing for a fleet of ships was restructured and the new mortgage prepared, three digits were omitted from a crucial figure. Instead of the mortgage stating that it secured a debt of $92,885,000, it stated that it secured a debt of only $92,885. The error appeared in almost 100 documents, but none of the law firms that worked on the transaction detected the mistake. Following the litigation, the mortgagee "reckoned that the typo [really a proofreading error] had cost it at least $31 million".

The task of transactional attorneys is to place commercial litigators on the endangered species list.