Commercial Law
The Commercial Law elective is designed to develop your
commercial awareness, legal knowledge and skills in advising
businesses on buying and selling goods. Business people need swift,
well drafted and practical contracts to take advantage of business
opportunities. Commercial Law is therefore very practical and
relatively unregulated. It gives great creative scope to the
advising lawyer to work closely with clients who are developing
businesses of all sizes. The elective is very dynamic, moving with
emerging business methods so now covers international sale of goods
and e-commerce. It is of general appeal for students seeking a
broad range of training contracts from City firms to small niche
practices.
The elective will cover:
- An introduction to commercial contracts, formation, breach and
remedies and exclusion clauses
- Sale of goods, implied terms, delivery, passing of property and
risk, the use of standard terms of trading and manufacturer's
liability
- Agency and distribution agreements; legal and commercial
differences between agents and distributors and analysis of when
each may be appropriate; effect of competition law
- International sale agreements; particular problems arising in
international sales; the procedure for a typical export
transaction; bills of lading and remedies
- Payment mechanisms in commercial transactions; bills of
exchange; documentary letters of credit
- The growth and use of electronic commerce; how this development
sits with legal principle and practical commercial issues; contract
formation online; information requirements for service providers;
the existence and viability of remedies for breach of electronic
commercial contracts
The elective will be taught through a variety of case studies
and skills exercises with a strong input from current
practitioners. It is designed to enable you to understand the basic
legal principles and commercial issues involved in the broad range
of commercial transactions you will encounter in practice. We give
particular emphasis to developing your interviewing and negotiation
skills as these are the core skills of a successful commercial
lawyer.
The elective particularly complements the Intellectual Property
and Competition Law elective. It sits well with any of the other
commercial electives such as Commercial Litigation, Commercial
Property and Employment. It can also complement the portfolio of
those students seeking niche practice areas such as Charity
Law.
The content of the full-time and part-time course is identical,
but they are structured differently.