Legal Skills: Contract Law: Drafting contracts in English

Course Code: CM024981      Days: 3
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15/10/08 London (Central) (SE1) £ 1,299
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Audience

  • Lawyers in private practice
  • Lawyers in banks and financial institutions
  • Lawyers working in industry and government
  • Anyone working in a legal environment, including legal secretaries and paralegal support staff.

Course Outline

Delegates will look at a wide variety of commercial clauses and agreements through practical drafting sessions.

A typical programme will cover the following aspects, however, each programme is adapted according to the actual requirements and interests of the delegates present.

PART 1 - BACKGROUND

Introduction to the English law of contract

  • Common law and equity
  • Codifications of contract law
  • Judicial resolution of legal disputes in English courts
  • Interpretation of written documents
  • Status of court judgments in English courts

Legal requirements for an enforceable contract

  • Effective acceptance
  • 'Battle of the forms'
  • Postal rules
  • Telex, fax and Internet
  • Consideration
  • Variation of contract
  • Absence of mistake or illegality
  • Form
  • Statutory requirements
  • Authority and signature
  • Commercial agents
  • Employees
  • Jurisdiction and proper law
  • Cases in which agreements may be unenforceable

Termination of contract

  • Time for performance
  • Frustration and force majeure

Some obstacles to enforcement

  • Lack of consideration
  • Misrepresentation (false statements)
  • Fundamental mistake
  • Illegality
  • Severance clause

PART 2 TECHNICAL CONTENT

An overview of cross-border agreements

  • Licensing
  • Agency
  • Distribution
  • Employment
  • Share and asset purchase

The structure of a contract

  • Key elements
  • Terms
  • Phrases
  • Structuring

Different approaches in civil and common law

  • Avoiding cross-code confusion
  • Terms and conditions
  • Guarantees and warranties
  • Use of Definitions
  • Formation
  • Consideration

Typical clauses

  • Recitals
  • Boiler-plate
  • Operative

Enforcement of decisions in international contractual disputes

PART 3 PRACTICAL CONTENT

Redrafting a range of typical clauses from a range of commercial agreements

  • Understanding and redrafting complex sentences, avoiding archaisms, repetition and ambiguity
  • Contractual principles applied to common types of commercial disputes
  • Drafting selected clauses according to sets of agreed principles

Letter and document writing

  • Heads of Agreement
  • Letters of Intent
  • Other forms of written communication employed in a contractual context

PART 4 SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

Drafting and redrafting in English

  • Grammar as used in contracts
  • Reading for specific information
  • Interpreting complex sentences
  • Technical legal terminology

Writing skills

  • Sequence structuring
  • Plain English
  • Clause and result
  • The language of contracts - terms, clauses and types of agreement
  • Strategies for continued improvement


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