CreepyCrawler did a better job of responding on the merits, so I'll just touch a few points:
I'm not a lawyer and, frankly, don't want to be a lawyer. I do HAVE a lawyer, and have entered a modest number of contracts...
If you think I need to be a lawyer to make my /. post, which, summarized, basically says to the OP "You're an idiot and you need a lawyer" - then I think you have a rather odd view of the world. You needn't be an attorney to handle that post.
I completely agree that the probability is low of any dispute rising to the actual expensive investigation and lengthy court hearings (because OP would have to make something of very significant value AND somehow have significant resources to continue fighting against this contract in court AND the contract would have to be weak enough that this didn't get immediately shut down.)
I also agree that this slight relevance depends on the contract actually being very badly written - because establishing his bad faith through crazy methods is only necessary if there's any doubt about whether he understood the contract in the first place. Which, if it's written reasonably, there probably isn't. I agree. And etc., I'm sure there's more.
However, if you don't think that an argument of bad faith in this context could EVER be relevant, especially to damages, or that IF it was worth enough money for them to do an intensive investigation and there is no circumstance where they would EVER use this if they knew about it (remembering that we haven't actually seen how good or bad the actual contract is) then I'm not sure I believe you're a lawyer. However, I suspect you're just saying that it's vanishingly, impractically unlikely - which I agree with.
But more importantly, you really missed my point there. First my meta-point, that the OP should take away from my post that not having an attorney is bad, and HIM not having an attorney is even worse. Do you disagree with either of these points?
To rehash that particular point of mine, it was:
- Whether /. is findable/admissible/worthwhile or not I can tell from your OP that you _believe_ this contract would restrict your rights, and you want to sign it then ignore it.
- That doing this to a random university makes you, in my opinion, a liar and a badly behaving person - whether or not the courts can thwack you for it.
- And that, in general, the courts may thwack you for acting in bad faith, if it can be demonstrated. (through obvious reading of the contract, or whatever)
- My mention of his /. post was really just illustrative - which I'd think you'd understand, considering the use of 'gasp' and 'Guilty' in your post.
P.S. ASKING on /. isn't what I meant as evidence of bad faith but (assuming you went through the possibly significant work to prove he really was the poster) his specific wording seemed in pretty bad faith to me.