American Contract Law

Professor: Peter M. Tiersma
Email: Peter.Tiersma@lls.edu
Course Website: www.tiersma.com (click on "courses")
Professional Website: www.languageandlaw.org

    This is a course in American contract law.  It will be similar to a class on this subject in an American law school, but adapted to foreign LLM students.  Although the class will concentrate on contract law, its main purpose is to teach students how to read judicial opinions and statutes (legislation) in the common-law tradition.  These skills can then be applied to other areas of the law.
   
    As in a regular contracts class in the United States, students will be expected to read several cases for each class, along with some legislative materials (for the most part, the Uniform Commercial Code) and what we might call quasi-legislative or secondary materials (especially the Restatement of Contracts).  We will then discuss these materials in class.  American law school classes are highly interactive, so students should not be afraid to speak up or ask questions!