How to Draft a Contract: Guidelines and Rules

Choosing a Contract Subject: Guidelines and Rules

As discussed during our exercise in class, your assignment will be to draft a contract.  I have posted a sample “Tim Horton’s “contract on Moodle that you may use as a template.  Here are the rules for the assignment.
1.    The topic of the contract has to be an everyday transaction for which you would not normally write a contract.The posted example to purchase one cup of coffee is a good example The exercise we did in class for the rights and obligations exchanged when you take a taxi ride is another example of the exchange of rights and obligations that occur in a contract.Your contract subject cannot be:
a.    For the purchase of a cup of coffee or any similar beverage (because I gave you that)
b.    For a taxi ride because we discussed that in class.
c.    For any other contract topic that I have already seen too much of and is probably a recycled assignment from a previous year.

 These include:
i.    Buying a computer or cell phone with two pages of performance specs.
ii.    Buying a slice of pizza and a drink or buying a hamburger
iii.    Renting an apartment.

2.    As for good subjects, I have seen many imaginative ideas and I encourage you to be creative.  It could be for something as simple as a haircut or buying groceries, taking the bus or buying a ticket to a Kamloops Blazers hockey game, hiring a personal trainer, renting a bicycle etc.  
4.    If I don’t like your idea, I will assign you a contract topic.
5.    I am looking for something between 2 and 3 pages long.  No longer.  Typed.
6.    You are free to copy from the contract template I have provided in terms of the format of the contract.  In other words, you can put the parties names at the top like I did, you can use the “recitals” (which are the A., B., and C at the beginning of the coffee contract I gave you).  You can use the headings and the final paragraph at the end of the contract where people would sign.
7.    This is due November 8, 2019.

8.    Please print off a copy and either bring it to class or put it under the door of my office (IB2011) .  
9.    Please staple or paperclip your assignment together.  I don’t require fancy report covers and there is no bonus for artwork.
10.    I am not looking for fancy legal language and I am more interested in the quality of your analysis in terms of the rights and obligations being exchanged between the parties.  
11.    Not every term in the coffee contract will be relevant to your contract.You will have to write what you think is relevant to what your contract.  One student wrote about buying winter tires for his car and said you had to order tires promptly and leave the store as soon as you got your tires.  That’s NOT how a tire shop works.  I want you to show me that you are thinking this through a bit.