Quote of the day:

"A good programmer is someone who always looks both ways before crossing a one-way street."

-- Doug Linder

It was only after marrying a lawyer that I realised something which had never before occurred to me: practising law can be very similar to programming computers.  

In both cases, you are trying to create a framework in which something can be achieved, while thinking of all the edge cases: all the ways it could go wrong; all the ways humans or other systems might be unpredictable, malicious or foolish, and catering for those situations as well as the ones you would normally expect to happen.

A good lawyer, like a good programmer, is someone who can expect the unexpected, and prepare for it.  A really good one can also make their plan both brief and readable.

And to any other software professionals who occasionally have to read tedious legal documents, I recommend thinking of them (and their creators) in this way, and you'll probably find them rather more interesting!