Contracts

This is a course about the law governing private agreements. The course analyzes the criteria for determining whether or not a particular promise or voluntary agreement is legally enforceable and surveys the major legal issues affecting enforceable agreements. These issues include the questions of when a contract becomes binding, what persons acquire rights under a contract, the conditions under which performance is required or excused, what constitutes breach of contract, and the remedies available for breach of contract. Attention will be given throughout the course to the general problems of interpreting contract language, the role of contracts in a market society, the conflict between the commercial need for certainty and the demands of individual fairness, and the relationship between contract law and other areas such as torts, property and restitution.