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LAW-2986 Transactional Skills and Contract Drafting
Prof. Steven Ferrey, Prof. Christopher Gibson,
3 credits day; 3 credits evening.
Students using this course to fulfill the experiential learning requirement may not also use this
same course to meet the legal writing requirement.
Transactional lawyers need to be able to apply their substantive knowledge and expertise to the
real-world transactional deals of their clients. This course is intended to help students prepare for
the practice of law by providing foundational skills for commercial and transactional law
practice. Students will learn about the role of transactional lawyers, while focusing on the basic
skills of translating the business deal into contract concepts, drafting commercial agreements,
and analyzing contract terms. Most lawyers will need to work with contracts during their careers
and, therefore, this course holds interest for all students and not just those interested in corporate
or transactional practice. The course will use using a variety of contract problems because not
every contract is of interest to all. Topics to be addressed include:
- Role of transactional lawyer and ethics - The context of the contract and deal timeline - The
deal lawyer’s analytical skill: determining which contract concept best expresses the business
deal - Basic techniques for drafting terms - Layout of a contract - How to avoid ambiguity and
unintentional vagueness – plain English - Boilerplate - Use of technology in contracts
Students are expected to come to class prepared, participate, and satisfactorily complete all
assignments by the deadlines.
Course grades will be based on the following: - Class participation - 30% - Non-graded
assignments and exercises - 20% - Graded assignments - 50%
Prerequisite: Contracts; Suggested: Corporations or LLC, Partnership and Agency
Enrollment is limited: 15
Elective Course
Meets Skills Menu Requirement
Meets Financial Services Concentration Requirements
Meets Experiential Learning Requirement
<<Course Updated: April 06, 2016>>