News & Events / Publications / Working With Contracts: What Law School Doesn't Teach You

25 November 2008

Lidings Law firm has published a new book “Working With Contracts: What Law School Doesn't Teach You” by Charles M. Fox.

At all times an agreement (contract) was considered to be the most wide-spread way to regulate relations in various spheres, including business. And one the primary goal of a lawyer is making a contract, participation in negotiations and control of fulfillment of the reached arrangements. To cope with this problem a lawyer must be able to turn thoughts and wishes of their clients into concrete contractual formulations. But no matter how surprising it might seem, modern law universities (both in Russia and abroad) not always graduate experts ready for such work.

Several years ago we set a problem before us – to familiarize a Russian lawyer with foreign experience in legal work. Thus, in November 2008 with assistance of Lidings Law Firm Charles Fox’s new book “Working with contracts: What Law School Doesn’t Teach You” was published. Andrey Zelenin, partner of the firm, was a scientific editor of the book.

The book is devoted to formation of skills of how to make a contract. It says not about legal regulation of these or those contractual relations, but how to make a contract, how to coordinate/reconcile different parties’ positions, how to find the most effective decisions of emerging disagreements and also how to reflect them in contractual provisions.

The book consists of 10 chapters. In them the author gives a detailed account of those elements a contract consists of, of what opportunities lay before a lawyer when negotiating and formulating contractual conditions, what a lawyer should pay their attention on when checking a contract and what is the right way of making changes in it.

The author uses a bright image of “bricks” to describe the main functional elements of a contract. The book is divided into two main parts: “bricks”-elements and “bricks”-details.

The book is illustrated with multiple examples, which demonstrate the suggested techniques.

The book is addressed to practising lawyers, students of law departments, and also to business people.

Contents, reviews and order form are available here.