Legal Writing III: Transactional Writing

Catalog description

7358. 3 hours. Legal Writing III is a required course that satisfies the Upper-Level Major Writing Requirement. UNT Dallas College of Law offers a variety of Legal Writing III courses that students can select based on their interest. All Legal Writing III courses are designed to give students experience drafting multiple writing assignments and engaging in the process of rewriting each of the major assignments in the course. Although the type of writings being drafted vary based on the topic of the Legal Writing III course, all Legal Writing III courses include at least (and often more than) a total of 25-pages of writing with the opportunity to rewrite the major assignment(s) after significant written and oral feedback from the course professor. Major writing assignments will comprise at least 60 percent of the course grade. Additionally, all Legal Writing III courses require students to complete at least two Multi-State Performance Tests ("MPT") selected by the Director of Legal Writing. A practice MPT will be given at the midterm exam and a graded MPT (worth 10 percent of the course grade) will be given at the final exam. This upper level writing course will teach principles of contemporary commercial contract drafting and give students an introduction to issues that arise in negotiating, drafting, and litigating over contracts. The skills and issues covered will be applicable to a transactional practice and will also be useful to litigators. Through a review of case law, real world examples, and in-class exercises, students will learn the business purpose of each contract concept, how to translate a proposed business deal into an effective and enforceable contract, how to draft contracts clearly and unambiguously, how to work through the drafting process, and how communicate with a client about a contract and its terms. This course will also address practical…