A Puzzler from Ken Adams

Over at the Koncision Blog, Ken Adams poses the following question:

In this post I refer to “bills of sale, instruments of assignment, releases, deeds, powers of attorney, stock powers, and the like, in other words short documents, usually signed by one party, that consist largely or entirely of language of performance, with the signatory giving something to someone.”

But in the same post I quote from two documents that served analogous functions but were structured as unilateral contracts, with both sides signing. (Black’s Law Dictionary defines a unilateral contract as “A contract in which only one party makes a promise or undertakes a performance; a contract in which no promisor receives a promise as consideration from the promise given.”)

Anyone care to propose when you should use a one-signatory document and when you should use a unilateral contract?

Any takers?

[JT]