ML: Contracts and Negotiations Intensive (Reavis)
Faculty
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| Donyale Reavis Lecturer-in-Law dyhr@me.com |
Additional Information
Skills Training
Oral Presentations
Expository Writing
Other Professional Skills:
Grading
50% Participation,
50% Paper
No
Class meets in person.
Course Continuity
Students are encouraged to stay home if you are ill or experience flu-like symptoms. If you miss a class for any reason, it is still your responsibility to make up the work missed.
I offer the following to students who miss class due to illness:
- Class sessions are regularly recorded. I will make these recordings routinely available on the course site to everyone in the class.
- I will make PowerPoint slides or other class materials routinely available on the course site to everyone in the class.
Meeting Times/Location
US 9:00AM - 3:00PM
Silverman Hall 245A
Category
Masters in Law
Credits
3.0
Course Title: Contracts and Negotiations Intensive Term: Fall 2026 (202630) Course Number: LAWM 5150 Intensive Dates: Weekend 1: Saturday September 19 and Sunday September 20, 2026 Weekend 2: Saturday October 10 and Sunday October 11, 2026 Weekend 3: Saturday November 14 and Sunday November 15, 2026 Intensive Time: 9:00am – 3:00pm
Description: This intensive course is designed to equip students not studying to be attorneys & without a legal background with practical tools for understanding, drafting, and enforcing legal agreements from a business or client standpoint. The curriculum introduces common legal documents used in business transactions and offers hands-on experience in drafting and negotiation. Students will discover how to apply key contract concepts to express the parties’ intentions accurately and draft provisions that balance clarity, advantage, and compromise. Foundational principles of contract law and negotiation theory will be explored within legal contexts. The course provides a framework for understanding, drafting, and negotiating commercial agreements across three real-world transaction scenarios. Each weekend builds on the last, progressively introducing more complexity, risk allocation challenges, and negotiation dynamics.
Students will convert business objectives into enforceable contract language, identify leverage and risk, and sharpen negotiation strategy through structured simulations. Because tax structure drives deal economics, compensation design, and ultimate value to each party, every session includes a dedicated 30-minute Practical Tax Spotlight covering the Internal Revenue Code provisions and other tax tools to strengthen your negotiation skills and outcomes. Through analysis of real or hypothetical business situations, students are encouraged to bring actual challenges for classroom discussion. The course is highly interactive, featuring exercises and simulated negotiations, where participants will learn to prepare effectively and respond to different negotiation styles and approaches. Additional topics include the lawyer-client relationship during negotiations, dispute resolution strategies, and ethical considerations that may emerge.
This class will be held in person only. Due to the nature of the intensive 3-weekend format, attendance is mandatory.
Business and Corporate Law Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of business and corporate law; Perform legal analysis in the context of business and corporate law; Communicate effectively on topics related to business and corporate law; Demonstrate an understanding of the interconnection between the world of business and finance and that of business and corporate law, and how they affect other areas of law and society.
Skills Learning outcomes: Demonstrate an understanding of the individual course skill; Demonstrate the ability to receive and implement feedback; Demonstrate an understanding of how and when the individual course skill is employed in practice.
Tax Law Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of tax law and policy; Perform legal analysis in the context of tax law and policy; Communicate effectively on topics related to tax law and policy; Demonstrate an understanding of how tax law and policy affect other areas of law and business.
Textbooks
"Contracts in a Nutshell" by Claude Rohwer, Anthony Skrocki, Michael Malloy |