Legal Question in Business Law in Massachusetts

Re: Contract dispute

The short answer to your question is NO, but some explanation might be useful.

In the modern world of business, contracts of all kinds are made in huge numbers with highly variable degrees of formality. The law recognizes that the needs of modern commerce are best met when contracting formalities are appropriate to the situation. On the floor of the stock market, for example, traders form enforceable contracts using only hand signals. Oral contracts are still enforceable in many situations. Written agreements are only needed in a few situations, including agreements to transfer property between spouses and contracts involving interests in real estate. Even then, the language used and the format can be highly informal and abbreviated.

The real question is not "what formalities are required to make a valid contract?" so much as "What formalities are advisable to make a contract that can be understood by a judge or jury if a dispute arises?"

Experienced contract drafters will number the pages of a multi-page contract, e.g. 'page x of y pages" to assist the parties -- or a court -- in case there is doubt about whether the contract is properly collated, whether a page is missing, or a page has been fraudulently added, etc. However, the page numbers are not ordinarily considered part of the contract themselves, but merely extrinsic aids in its mechanical organization and presentation.

Parties are also often asked to initial each page, and/or to initial corrections or interlineations. The purpose is to authenticate the pages and/or corrections. The initials thus are not essential to the validity of the contract but are merely a means to verify its integrity.

In short, a contract with signatures but without initials on pages and corrections is valid but it's possibly harder to prove there's been no subsequent monkeybusiness.

Re: Contract dispute

No, initialling is not required. Initialling the pages or interlineations of a written agreement serves as clear evidence that the parties had that page before them when they signed the contract, but the contract - including any interlineated changes - would still be admissible as evidence of the agreement.