ABSTRACT
This is one contract law professor’s reflection on his ambivalent relationship with the Restatement (Second) of Contracts. The Restatement’s great pedagogical benefit is that it handily compiles many problem-solving rules taught in the first-year contract law class. Well-crafted student answers use them to respond to the issues embedded in the exam question factual narrative. But the Restatement also includes less helpful sections which tend to exacerbate students’ persistent desire to believe that law is a complete system, existing somewhere out there in Platonic perfection, capable of providing binary or certain answers to every knotty problem. As a result, it also contributes to student exam answers that, instead of solving problems, expound on the relationship of the fact patterns to the grand scheme.
Lipshaw, Jeffrey M., A Law Professor’s Love-Hate Relationship with the Restatement (Second) of Contracts (May 31, 2023), Journal of Legal Education, Forthcoming; Suffolk University Law School Research Paper No 23-8.
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