Introducing Negotiation and Drafting into the Contracts Classroom

Authors

Carol Chomsky, University of Minnesota Law SchoolFollow
Maury Landsman, University of Minnesota Law SchoolFollow

Publication

St. Louis University Law Journal

Volume

44

Page

1545

Year

2000

Abstract

It is by now almost a commonplace to say that the first year of law school should include skills-focused opportunities in addition to the massive doses of legal doctrine and analysis that form the core of the first year curriculum. 1 Understanding contracts only through the lens of litigated disputes gives students a very limited picture of what lawyers do with respect to contracts and little opportunity to develop the skills of effective representation and artful and precise drafting needed to avoid such litigation. Moreover, the necessary emphasis on contract doctrine may obscure the degree to which many contract-related problems are answered less by a knowledge of the law than by effective understanding of client circumstances and needs and the ability to negotiate well on the client's behalf.

Comments

Reprinted with permission of the Saint Louis University Law Journal © 2010.
St. Louis University School of Law, St. Louis, Missouri.

Recommended Citation

Carol Chomsky and Maury Landsman, Introducing Negotiation and Drafting into the Contracts Classroom, 44 St. Louis U. L.J. 1545 (2000), available at https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/faculty_articles/353.