The law of contracts, including formation, performance, remedies and termination, is discussed in this course.
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4 comments:
The doctrine is complex, and I think I only really "clicked" in Contracts in the last few weeks of the class. Instructor's use of powerpoint slides, while at times a bit flashy, helped. It was really helpful of hi to post the powerpoint slides online prior to the class, so that I could annotate them during lectures.
I felt the presentations were a bit exuberant at times, sometimes articulating concepts in language that was more completed or jargony than it needed to be. That is a style issue, and probably is more personal than pertinent. I did feel that the economic policy bent of the lass was strong. What other models are there for analyzing contract law? Well . . . after this class I don't know. But I can tell you all about efficient breach!
I never felt condescended to (unlike my experience with other professors), nor did ever have any difficulty contacting this professor out of class. He is responsive and detailed when contacted by email, he is receptive to students in his office, and he always seems available to answer questions. No complaints or issues in these areas. The instructor distributed his own course materials. The price was right, but the editing left something to be desired. They averaged at least one small typo per page. The operative word there is "small" however, and I would far rather see regular typos than pay $90 for a casebook. Period.
The reading was at times intense, especially toward the end of the course. I got the sense that the latter portion of his proprietary materials had been less worked on than the earlier portions. That means that there was a lot of bunk and flab in the cases that could have been edited out. The result was that clarity suffered.
I predict this professor will be roasted on this board for his "zero tolerance" policy. He refused to admit students late, and it caused quite a stir, and in some cases genuine animosity from students. I managed to stay below the radar in the debate over this issue, but I felt that student anger and outrage (I believe) is misplaced. A professor has a right to run his class as he sees fit, within the scope of a VERY wide berth. He believed that his teaching would be better for the policy, and he implemented it. Students consequentially became very upset, and raised a stir. To me, their reaction was far out of proportion to the actual issue. Other people will see it differently, an I understand that. But the hubbub over the policy was essentially drama. Not substantive.
As a preface to these comments, I would like to say that I felt lost through a great deal of the class, but that it began to make more sense in the end. This may have been because of the decision to structure the class to begin with remedies, or it may have been my own incompetence. That said, the instructor was dynamic and high energy. This is certainly not a class you could fall asleep in. On the other hand, there was something troubling about the singularity of the viewpoint from which we received the law here - the materials were all written and constructed by the instructor, which amplified any deficiencies.
The use of visual aids were helpful in steering the major themes of the discussion, in theory. However, there were times where the slides (and the questions on them) did not match up to the discussion that was happening, which made aspects hard to follow. I think the instructor also could have been clearer with respect to aspects of the black-letter law earlier in the course.
I think the instructor was engaging, energetic, and had a great deal of respect for student questions and input (though I anticipate many other students will say the opposite). There was a great deal of tension in the class when the instructor, frustrated by students consistently coming in late at the beginning of the semester, instituted a zero-tolerance late policy. When it was pointed out that the clock in the room (which was used as the time to start class) was five minutes fast, the instructor could have preserved his rapport with the class by simply acknowledging that and agreeing to start on real time. Instead, he unilaterally and perhaps superciliously instituted a zero-tolerance policy. This all led into smug senses of superiority and passive-aggressiveness spiraling out of control among both the students in the class and the professor, but I think when the professor finally addressed the issue, he did so admirably and with a great deal of grace and humility. Nevertheless, the problem was addressed too late, and any rapport and respect he had cultivated was permanently lost.
The instructor taught out of his own proprietary materials, which I think was a mistake. The readings were overly long, poorly excerpted, and often full of confusing mistakes and typos. Additionally, wherever there was a point of confusion in the doctrine as presented in class, it was not possible to gain any clarity from the readings, which suffered from the same deficiencies. I also missed those breaks in the readings provided by note cases (which here, were typically presented in full) that clarify nuances and different applications of a rule.
Again, many of the cases could have been excerpted in ways that made clear exactly what the take-away point was. For example, I don't need to read three paragraphs on the standard for summary judgment in the middle of a contracts class. Because of the length and complexity of the jargon in many of the cases (and the order in which materials were presented), I don't feel as if I got as much out of it as I could have.
I'll echo a number of points the other posters made.
My biggest complaint is with Professor Tall*y's PDF reader. It's riddled with errors, overlong, stuffed with Restatement and U.C.C. sections but too thin on the sort of helpful commentary and notes that one finds in a good casebook (Dukeminier & Krier's Property, for instance, or Kadish's Criminal Law and Its Processes). I hope Tall*y will abandon the PDF reader in favor of a real casebook someday, but I don't think that's likely to happen. He's clearly put a lot of time into this reader. I'm just not sure it was time well spent.
Also, the relentless law and econ bent of the class frustrated me. I know it's Tall*y's thing--he has an econ PhD, after all, and he’s the co-director of the Center for Law, Business, and the Economy. Yes, he's free to teach however he likes. But in a mandatory, foundational course like this one, I wish he would expose 1Ls to additional perspectives--not just those that emerged from the University of Chicago. As other posters have noted, a student could come away from Tall*y's course believing that law and economics is the only way to think about contracts. And it just ain't so.
I finally received my grade from Professor Tall*y today, 11 days after the deadline. And for the record, it wasn't worth the wait.
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