Contract Law

Andrew Stewart is the John Bray Professor of Law at the University of Adelaide and works as a consultant with the national law firm Piper Alderman. His research areas are employment law, contract law and intellectual property. He has published extensively in these areas, with some of his sole or co-authored works including Stewart's Guide to Employment Law (2008), Creighton & Stewart's Labour Law (6th edition, 2016), Intellectual Property in Australia (2nd edition, 1997) and Independent Contractors: A Practical Guide (2013). Andrew Stewart is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, an Editor of the Australian Journal of Labour Law and co-director of the Adelaide Law School's research group on Work and Employment Regulation. Warren Swain is Professor of Law and Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland. He has previously published The Law of Contract 1670–1870 (Cambridge, 2015) as part of the Cambridge Studies in English Legal History series, and is currently writing a monograph on the history of the law of contract in Australia and New Zealand between 1788 and 2000. He edited a collection on contract law teaching, Reimagining Contract Law Pedagogy with David Campbell (2019). He has published very widely on contract, tort, restitution and intellectual history in a number of jurisdictions. He is one of the world's leading historians of private law. Karen Fairweather is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland. Her main areas of interest are contract law, consumer law and financial services law. Her publications include three edited collections Private Law and Power (2016), Private Law in the 21st Century (2017) and Credit, Consumers and the Law (2018). She was a Prince of Wales Scholar of Gray's Inn and has previously taught at Durham University, the University of Queensland and the University of Adelaide.

• Preface; Table of cases; Table of statutes; Part I. Introduction: 1. Some basic questions; 2. Themes and perspectives; 3. Resolving contractual disputes; Part II. Making a Contract: 4. Preparing to make a contract; 5. Formation; 6. Preliminary agreements; 7. Protecting reliance: the doctrine of Estoppel; 8. The parties to a contract; Part III. Contractual Obligations: 9. Terms and obligations; 10. Interpreting contracts; 11. Limiting or extending liability; 12. Performance of contractual obligations; Part IV. Adjusting a Contract: 13. Varying terms; 14. Transferring rights and obligations; 15. Impossibility and change of circumstances; Part V. Ending A Contract: 16. Termination of contracts; 17. Consequences of termination; Part VI. Vitiating Factors and Unfair Conduct: 18. Misinformation; 19. Undue pressure; 20. Unconscionability and unfairness; 21. Illegality and public policy; Part VII. Remedies: 22. Enforcing a contract; 23. Damages for breach of contract; 24. Restitutionary remedies; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.

'The definitions are crisp, short and to fresh law students, a lifeline in giddying seas. This exemplifies the book's approach. The authors have resisted temptation: Contract Law: Principles and Context is largely free from qualifications, unnecessary details and hesitant explanation. The book may not be the first choice for scholars, but it is a decisive and impressively clear introduction to the Australian law of contract.' Wayne Jocic, Melbourne Law School