Legal Writing, Advanced: Transactional Drafting

Course Information

Registration Information

Meeting Times

Day Time Location
THU 4:15 - 6:05 pm TNH 3.127

Evaluation Method

Type Date Time Location
None

Description

The course offers practical experience in drafting and reviewing contracts, corporate documents, and licenses, using a software startup company as a source of examples.  We will begin from the initial engagement letter and work through the life cycle of the company through sale of the company.  We will focus first on understanding a client’s business objectives, and then on how to draft and analyze contracts, in plain English, with those objectives in mind. Examples include an engagement letter for joint representation of two founders, company formation, intellectual property agreements, venture capital financing term sheets and agreements, software licensing and distribution contracts, employment agreements, consulting and services agreements, and transaction documents for the sale of a business.   

The course includes classroom lecture and exercises, and a weekly writing requirement, with feedback from the instructor.  It may be helpful, but is not required, to have taken or being taking concurrently a course in business associations.  Students who do not yet have that background may expect to have to do some additional reading to understand the issues to be dealt with in drafting  (just as you might when, as a new lawyer, you work on a project of a kind you have never seen before). 

Textbooks ( * denotes required )

Working with Contracts: What Law School Doesn't Teach You *
Fox, Charles M.
PLI Corporate and Securities Library , edition: 2d
ISBN: ISBN-10: 1402410603
Venture Deals: Be Smarter than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist *
Feld, Brad
Wiley & Sons , edition: 3d
ISBN: ISBN-10: 1119259754

Instructors

Headshot of Borden, Diana K Borden, Diana K
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Important Class Changes

Date Updated
01/04/2018 Course title updated