Contracts : the five essential concepts / Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of International Law, Yale Law School ; with illustrations by Morgane Richer La Flèche.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brilmayer, Lea, author.

Contributor:

Richer La Flèche, Morgane, illustrator.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Contracts.

Physical Description:

xv, 152 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Durham, North Carolina : Carolina Academic Press, LLC, [2020]

Summary:

"It's not a casebook; it's not a hornbook; it's not a traditional study aid. It's a short and extremely readable introduction to the five essential concepts of contract law: consideration, offer and acceptance, parol evidence, conditions, and quasi-contract. Contracts: The Five Essential Concepts focuses on the ideas that first year contracts students are most likely to find confusing. Written in a relaxed, informal and nontechnical style, this book explains the five basic concepts using humorous anecdotes and familiar, relevant examples from daily life such as buying a laptop online, signing a lease, and taking out a student loan. It is the perfect supplement to a traditional casebook because it explains the logic underlying the most significant precedents without "hiding the ball" and in an intuitively appealing way. Contracts: The Five Essential Concepts will be of great interest both to professors wishing to assign or recommend readings to supplement an existing syllabus, as well as to students looking for assistance in deciphering the readings that the professor assigns. Recent graduates reviewing contract law for the bar exam will find it invaluable, as will foreign graduate students whose knowledge of American contracts law is limited. Members of the general public wishing to understand what contract law is all about will be delighted by the book's clear tone and engaging presentation. Totally unique in both ambition and realization, this book belongs on the shelf of every reader with some reason to understand the basics of the American law of contracts"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: ch. One Introduction

A. Contract Law: What's in It for Us?

B. The Values That Motivate the Law of Contracts

1. Voluntariness

2. Problems with "Voluntariness"

3. Subjectivity of Value

4. Distribution of Risk

C. Conclusion

ch. Two Consideration

A. Easy Cases: Gift Promises and Past Consideration

1. Undermining Future Commitments: The Perspective of the Future Promisors

2. If/Then Statements

B. Applications of the Consideration Doctrine: Third Party Guarantors, Irrevocable Offers, Settlements, and Contract Modifications

ch. Three Offer and Acceptance under the Common Law

A. Bilateral and Unilateral Contracts

1. What Is the Difference?

2. Why the Distinction Matters

3. Problems of Offers and Acceptances in Unilateral Contracts

B. Bilateral Contracts: The Course of the Negotiations

C. Five Types of Communications

1. Definitions

2. The Mailbox Rule

3. Putting the Pieces Together

D. Issues Relating to Offers

1. Offers and the Power of Acceptance

2. The Role of Social Expectations

3. Specificity

E. Issues Relating to Acceptance

1. The Mirror Image Rule

2. Exceptions and Qualifications to the Rule

3. The Special Powers of the Offeror

ch. Four The Uniform Commercial Code and the Formation of Contracts

A. Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code: A Brief Overview

B. The Evolution of Contract Formation

1. Economic, Technological, and Social Changes

2. The Rise of Form Contracts

C. The Common Law and the UCC Compared

1. The Common Law and Modern Consumer Contracts

2. How the UCC Is Different

D. Conclusion

ch. Five The Statute of Frauds and the Parol Evidence Rule

A. What Are the Statute of Frauds and the Parol Evidence Rule?

1. Two Venerable Rules

a. The Statute of Frauds

b. The Parol Evidence Rule

2. The Rules' Respective Roles

B. The Statute of Frauds: Logic and Policy

1. Factual Inferences About the Absence of a Writing

2. Categorical Treatment and Statutory Exceptions

C. The Distinctive Logic of the Parol Evidence Rule

1. Beyond the False Claims Rationale

2. Consolidation

3. "Integrated" Contracts

ch. Six Two Kinds of Conditions

A. Introduction

B. Reciprocal Performance

1. Self-Help Remedies

2. Ambivalence

C. Implied Condition Precedent

1. Implied Conditions: An Overview

2. Some Illustrative Cases

D. Implied Condition Precedent and the Concept of Mistake

1. Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns

2. Uncertainty and Error Compared

3. Implied Condition Precedent and Distribution of Risk

E. Conclusion

ch. Seven Fairness: Now You See It, Now You Don't

A. Fairness: One Standard or Two?

B. Three Kinds of Fairness

1. What Rita Apparently Meant: The Morality of Fairness

2. What Professor Ono Probably Had in Mind: Unconscionability

a. Uniform Commercial Code [§]2-302: An Introduction

b. The Continuing Debate

3. Quasi-Contracts

a. Contract and Quasi-Contract: A Taxonomy

b. Contract and Quasi-Contract: The Basic Difference

c. Quasi-Contract and Contractual Relations

d. Tidying Up after a Break-Up

C. Conclusion.

Other Format:

Online version: Brilmayer, Lea. Contracts

ISBN:

9781531018375

1531018378

OCLC:

1154078601