Teaching Contract Law: My Way

By Professor David McLauchlan

This book seeks to explain and illustrate Professor David McLauchlan's approach to teaching the law of contract. It does so by, for the most part, reproducing the text of a selection of classes he has conducted over more than 50 years of teaching the  subject. The aim of these classes is to assist the development of the analytical, critical and other lawyering skills that will equip students for their future careers in the law while at the same time ensuring that they have a firm grounding in the core principles of thelaw. In this respect the book is unique.

Volume One contains a selection of case and statute analyses in the area of contract formation (including privity). The chapters traverse the principles of formation in the context of Socratic discussions of key cases and statutes between a familiar-sounding professor and hypothetical student.  This approach allows for different issues, topics and fact patterns to be explored in a way that is engaging, enlightening and entertaining.

Teaching Contract Law: My Way is a book for all readers of law - from students early in their legal development to members of the profession and even the judiciary who need a refreshed reference to the law of contract.  It is a testament to Professor McLauchlan's commitment to this great subject, and the thousands of students who have passed through his courses.

What is magnificent about this idea is that it combines for posterity both David’s talents:  here is not just profound scholarship, but also his method of teaching.  This work’s influence on a generation of teachers of law should be profound.  Unlike journal articles or textbook chapters, these chapters draw you in inexorably, so you become part of the conversation between professor and student.  As would be expected, they are warm, wise, disciplined and depth-finding. 

Sir Stephen Kós, extract from Foreword to Teaching Contract Law: My Way 

Foreword - Sir Stephen Kós

Preface

1.       Introduction

2.       Pharmaceutical Society v Boots Cash Chemists

3.       Chapelton v Barry UDC

4.       Smith v Hughes

5.       Boulder Consolidated v Tangaere

6.       Dysart Timbers v Nielsen

7.       Revocation of Offers: Dickinson v Dodds

8.       Byrne v Leon Van Tienhoven

9.       The Postal Acceptance Rule: Part One

10      The Postal Acceptance Rule: Part Two

11.     The Postal Acceptance Rule: Part Three

12.     Aotearoa International v Scancarriers and Devani v Wells

13     Unilateral Contracts: Markholm Construction, Blackpool Aero Club and Harvela Investments

14.     Jones v Padavatton

15.     The Battle of the Forms

16.     The Doctrine of Consideration

17.     Pao On v Lau Yiu Long

18.     The Rule in Stilk v Myrick

19.     The Demise of Stilk v Myrick

20.     The Rule in Foakes v Beer: An Introduction

21.     Practical Benefits, Promissory Estoppel and Foakes v Beer

22.     The Curious Case of Beaton v McDivitt

23.     Privity of Contract: An Introduction

24.     Consideration, Privity and the Joint Promisee Principle

25.     Legislative Reform of the Doctrine of Privity

26.     Privity Reform: A Common Law Development

27.     Privity, the Rights of the Promisee and the Panatown Case

Table of Cases

Table of Statutes and Regulations

Subject Index