The Mother of All TDBP Posts

We here at Mission Control have really outdone ourselves this time. The priceless article below comes to us, with all appropriate permissions, courtesy of the Daily Journal. The article originally appeared in print (with the photo below) in the Daily Journal's recent "New Lawyer" supplement. The Evacuee cooperated somewhat grudgingly in making this glorious moment of republication possible. We'll just stand back now and bask in the reflected glory.

Life Is a Contract

By Emma Dewald

People say law school doesn't teach you anything. Anything you can use, anyway.

Those same people tell you to forget your hours with the contract-law outline the moment the indecipherable message - "your name appears on the bar passage list" - flashes on your computer: Those people are wrong.

Contract law, as taught in law school and in the bar review course of your choosing, may not help you draft an agreement. But consideration, illusory consideration, breach - those little-used concepts can solve your dating dilemmas. Your romance rigmarole. The lunacy of love.

Let's observe this principle in action in some hypothetical (but realistic) fact patterns!

This guy said, "Maybe we should go get a cup of coffee some time." I said, "OK." He never called me. Can I be mad?

No. Offer and acceptance are required for a binding contract to exist. A real offer gives the material terms of the contract, like, say, times or places. "Maybe we should go get a cup of coffee some time" is not an offer, and you couldn't accept it. You don't have a legal leg to stand on, but you can brood quietly to yourself.

I told my boyfriend that I would buy him dinner at Patina next Thursday. Now I don't want to. Do I have to?

No, unless he went out and bought himself a suit. You didn't have a contract, because he didn't agree to do anything in return. It's a garden-variety unenforceable promise. But if he "detrimentally relied" on your promise - that is, getting his hair done, turning down other dinner options - then you might have to bite the bullet and go eat some foam.

Now you are sitting there, saying to yourself, "But my life is so complicated! Can contracts really help?" Let's look at a more intricate problem. Don't panic, we'll take it slow.

I was supposed to go to a movie with my lady friend.

Already, there are issues. What does "lady friend" mean? Are you dating? Are you dating exclusively? Precision is the essence of a contract.

At the last minute, she said she didn't want to go.

Again, it's unclear what you're trying to say. Did you have a mutual agreement to go to a movie? Had you merely discussed it? Was it implicit in this "lady friend" relationship that you would go to movies together every week? Until I know the answers to these questions, I cannot possibly know who was damaged.

So then I took this other girl.

Now it looks as though you didn't suffer at all from your lady friend's decision to stay home, whether or not you had a deal. You found a replacement. No harm, no foul is a core concept in contracts.

I went home with her, and we made out some, but we didn't sleep together or anything.

Your case for damages just got even weaker.

Now my girlfriend got mad and broke up with me.

I say, because she broke her promise to go to the movie with me, all bets are off. Who's right?

You want to know whether she can break up with you? Dating is an at-will relationship, and I don't care whether she said she would love you forever.

No damages for that. Sorry.

In any case, making out with somebody else is, generally speaking, a material breach of the relationship. If you people had one of these new-fangled "open relationships," well, you should have said that sooner.

All in all, it sounds to me like you've got some making whole to do.

So, you know, send her some candy or something. Or buy her some foam at Patina.

It isn't going to heal your heartbreak, of course. But at least you know who done wrong. Now go get a drink with your colleagues, and talk about just how outrageous opposing counsel's responses in discovery were. Or check your BlackBerry again. You know you want to.

Emma Dewald is a graduate of Columbia Law School and a former Daily Journal staff writer. She is touring the nation on a Greyhound bus and is blogging about her experiences at www.thirtydaybuspass.blogspot.com.