Contract Law

Adam Kramer is a Barrister at 3 Verulam Buildings and former Lecturer in Law at the Universities of Durham and Oxford. He is the author of the highly regarded introduction to working at the bar, Bewigged and Bewildered.

• 1 Textbooks 1.1 General 1.2 Specific Contract Types 1.3 Tort and Restitution 1.4 Student Texts 1.5 For Civil Lawyers 2 Pre-Contractual Liability 2.1 Generally 2.2 Preliminary Agreements 2.3 Duties to Bargain in Good Faith 2.4 Torts 2.5 Restitution 2.6 Obligations to Contract: The Common Callings 3 Formation 3.1 Capacity 3.2 Authority 3.3 Agreement 3.4 The Objective Principle and Unilateral and Cross-purposes Mistake 3.5 The Intention to Create Legal Relations 3.6 Consideration 3.7 Form 3.8 Certainty 3.9 Restitution and Void Contracts 4 The Terms of the Contract 4.1 Incorporation 4.2 Order of Performance 4.3 Standard Forms 4.4 Interpretation and the Objective Principle 4.5 Implied Terms 4.6 Exclusion and Penalty Clauses and Unfair Terms 5 Common Mistake and Frustration 5.1 The Bases of the Two Doctrines 5.2 Common Mistake 5.3 Frustration 5.4 Force Majeure Clauses 6 Misrepresentation, Duress, Undue Influence and Unconscionability 6.1 Duress, Undue Influence and Unconscionability 6.2 Misrepresentation 6.3 Rescission for Undue Influence, Misrepresentation, etc 6.4 The (New Zealand) Contractual Remedies Act 1979 7 Illegality and Restraint of Trade 7.1 General Texts 7.2 Generally 7.3 Restraint of Trade and Restrictive Covenants 7.4 War 7.5 Champerty 7.6 The Effect of Illegality 8 Privity and Third Party Rights 8.1 Third Party Rights to Sue 8.2 Third Party Rights to Rely on Exclusion Clauses 8.3 Binding Third Parties to Exclusion Clauses 8.4 The (US) Restatement (Second) of Contracts 8.5 The (New Zealand) Contracts (Privity) Act 1982 8.6 The (English) Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 8.7 Contracts with Proprietary Effect 8.8 Assignment 9 Modification 9.1 Generally 9.2 Consideration for Contract Modifications 9.3 Waiver and Promissory Estoppel 9.4 Duress and Contract Modifications 9.5 Agreed Termination 10 Breach and Termination 10.1 Generally 10.2 Cure and Re-Tender 10.3 Anticipatory Breach and Renunciation 10.4 Repudiatory/Fundamental Breach 10.5 The Effects of Repudiatory Breach 10.6 Termination Pursuant to Express Contract Clauses 11 Remedies 11.1 General Texts 11.2 Generally 11.3 Theory 12 Specific Relief 12.1 Action for Debt/Action for an Agreed Sum 12.2 Specific Performance and Injunctions 13 Damages 13.1 General Texts 13.2 Compensatory/Expectation Damages 13.3 Non-Pecuniary Losses 13.4 Limiting Principles and Quantification 13.5 Non-Compensatory Damages 13.6 Theory 14 Concurrent Liability 14.1 Contract and Tort 14.2 Contract and Unjust Enrichment 14.3 Promissory Estoppel as a Cause of Action 15 Procedure, Litigation and Drafting 15.1 Limitation 15.2 Contribution 15.3 Drafting 16 Contract Theory 16.1 General Texts 16.2 About Theorising 16.3 Theories 16.4 Mandatory and Default Rules 17 Codification and International Harmonisation 17.1 National 17.2 European 17.3 Global 18 Comparative Contract Law 18.1 General 18.2 European 19 Contract and Other Areas of Law 19.1 Contract and Agency 19.2 Contract and Bailment 19.3 Contract and Company Law 19.4 Contract and Crime 19.5 Contract and Employment 19.6 Contract and Family 19.7 Contract and Fiduciary Duties 19.8 Contract and the Law of Obligations 19.9 Contract and Property 19.10 Contract and Tort 19.11 Contract and Trusts 19.12 Contract and Unjust Enrichment/Restitution 20 Legal History 20.1 General and Miscellaneous 20.2 Fourteenth-Sixteenth Centuries 20.3 Seventeenth-Eighteenth Centuries 20.4 Nineteenth Century 20.5 Twentieth Century 21 Influences and Development 21.1 Particular Individuals 21.2 The Role of Commerce 21.3 The Role of Morality 21.4 The Role of Equity 21.5 The Role of Public Law 22 Miscellaneous 22.1 Novelty 22.2 Contract Law and Literature 22.3 Teaching Contract Law