Legal Question in Investment Law in California

What do you mean by "show first?" I haven't heard of a "show first agreement," so I guess you must mean "shown first," and that by this phrase you mean that someone handed you an agreement, or the signature page of an agreement, and had you sign it without giving you a chance to read the entire agreement before signing.

If this isn't what you mean, please re-ask your question with greater clarity and detail, and be sure to check and edit your spelling, etc. before sending to LawGuru. We are getting a large number of questions lately which are difficult to understand or completely unintelligible because the writers fail to type carefully and/or proofread before hitting the "send" button.

If this is what you mean, I'd say that the failure of one party to read a contract or other agreement before signing does not usually render the agreement unenforceable. An exception would arise when the reason the party didn't read the document first was due to the other party's fraud or deception as to the nature or contents of the document, or the use of force or the threat of force, etc., to induce the signing.

Finally, in the context of signing agreements, we don't usually think in terms of whether an action or failure to act is "legal" or "illegal." In the law of contracts, it is more customary to ask whether an agreement is "enforceable" versus "unenforceable" or "valid" vs. "not valid" or "invalid." The use of the term "illegal" suggests an action that is criminal in nature, for which the D.A. may file charges and bring someone to trial and seek punishment.

I hope this has answered your question, or at least given you some guidance on what to do next.