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Poke Your Nose Into Your Clients' Businesses (If You Want To Understand Their Contracts), James W. Bowers

Maine Law Review

Thirty years ago Grant Gilmore argued that “Contract” was dead. This lecture, delivered as 2004 Godfrey Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Maine School of Law, considers the cause of death. Since the expired doctrines arose in a common law process, the lecture argues their demise resulted from the failings of lawyers, especially lawyers' commitment to wooden, formalist legal methods. I explore some of the reasons why lawyers became committed to these methods, and argue that even were nineteenth-century formalistic practices resurrected, modern lawyers must still be prepared to understand the potential effects business contexts might have in contract disputes and …