Priestley 11 · Usually first year
Contracts for Australian law students
Contracts is the subject that teaches you to read closely. Most of the assessment turns on whether a term was incorporated, what it means, and whether something that happened afterwards discharged it. Equity is never far away, and the Australian Consumer Law sits over the top of a good deal of it.
What the subject covers
- Formation: offer, acceptance, consideration and intention to create legal relations
- Terms, incorporation, and the construction of a written contract
- Estoppel, and the relationship between promissory and proprietary estoppel
- Vitiating factors: misrepresentation, mistake, duress, undue influence, unconscionable dealing
- Discharge by performance, agreement, breach or frustration
- Remedies at common law and in equity, and the Australian Consumer Law overlay
Topic coverage varies between law schools and between jurisdictions. Your subject guide is the one that counts.
Cases you will meet in an Australian Contracts course
Three decisions that turn up in Contracts across Australian law schools. Some of them are English decisions that Australian courses still teach as core authority, so this is a list of what you will be taught rather than a list of Australian judgments. Treat it as a starting point rather than a reading list. Your course sets its own, and it is the one that counts.
Waltons Stores (Interstate) Ltd v Maher
(1988) 164 CLR 387
Promissory estoppel as a cause of action in Australia.
Commercial Bank of Australia Ltd v Amadio
(1983) 151 CLR 447
Unconscionable dealing, and special disadvantage.
Codelfa Construction Pty Ltd v State Rail Authority of New South Wales
(1982) 149 CLR 337
Construction, and when evidence of surrounding circumstances is admissible.
Longer explainer: Commonwealth Bank v Barker explained
How the subject is assessed
A formation or breach problem question mid-semester, then a research essay on a doctrinal controversy where AGLC4 compliance is marked, then a final exam. Contracts is often the subject where students first meet a marked citation style.
Using CaseSharp for Contracts
Problem questions
Formation questions reward a clean order of analysis. Ask the question the way you would ask a tutor and you get an answer with the authorities attached, filtered by court and jurisdiction when you need the binding line.
Case notes
The set case is often a long joint judgment. A brief pulls out material facts, issue, rule, application and holding, with source records to inspect before you rely on it.
AGLC4 essays
Contract essays run long on footnotes, and pinpoints to a specific judge matter. CaseSharp's citation check (beta) suggests a draft footnote for each case citation it finds. Treat it as a draft you check against AGLC4 and the original source.
Exam scaffolds
Scaffold by stage: formation, terms, vitiating factors, discharge, remedies. Check the citing cases for the authorities in each stage before the paper.
CaseSharp is a research and study tool. It does not write your problem question answer or your research essay. When a citation in your draft is not in CaseSharp's records, the citation check (beta) marks it for your review instead of guessing.
Try it on a Contracts question
Create a free account and run a Contracts query like the one below, so you can see what comes back before you decide anything.
promissory estoppel Waltons Stores v Maher
Australian decisions in CaseSharp’s collection. Coverage varies by court and date.