Overview
This unit is designed to provide you with knowledge of the fundamental principles of the law of Contract in Australia. Along with the law of Torts, this unit will provide you with a solid foundation in many of the civil law issues faced in legal practice. The unit first canvasses the theoretical underpinnings of contract law, before examining the principles of a valid and enforceable contract, including intention to create legal relations, capacity and consideration, including promissory estoppel. You will then investigate and reflect on the contents, construction and interpretation of a contract and the doctrine of privity. The unit then moves on to consider contracts with a vitiating element such as mistake, misrepresentation, duress, undue influence, unconscionable contracts, and illegal and void contracts. Finally the unit examines the ways in which a contract may be assigned, discharged, terminated, and the remedies available for non-performance of a contract. This unit meets the Legal Practitioners Admissions Board requirements for Contracts.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Co-requisite: LAWS11057 Introduction to Law
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 2 - 2026
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback - Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from Student evaluations
The unit is very content heavy, understandably so. Perhaps a 'nudge' to students to 'start content early' as it is easy to fall behind. The study guides are very wordy; some of these could be slimmed down to give the main idea of the concepts. The individual feedback (given on TEAMS) for the IRACs each week is highly valuable and constructive. This supports students with their structure/ formatting of their IRACs, use of AGLC4, and the ability to apply the feedback in student's written mid-term assessment. The answer guides for each week's IRACs are really useful in aiding the construction of notes for the final exam. They are very clearly set out, the content which is revised, and discussions which are added from the workshop. The weekly workshop is engaging.
Students find the unit quite challenging given the volume and breadth of content. The content is largely unavoidable given the Legal Profession Admission Board requirements for the unit. However, more emphasis was provided this term in alerting students to the need to start early and devote sufficient study time each week to this unit. The study guides and videos are being redeveloped for 2026. The Teams feedback exercise and answer guides will be retained.
Feedback from Student evaluations
I really enjoyed my tutor's teaching style. She was engaging and warm in her delivery of the weekly sessions and also helpful, as she provided the weekly tutorial answer guides which assist to cement the weekly sessions. Her knowledge of the subject was exceptional in my opinion.
Emphasis on student connection and pastoral care retained as it is particularly important in content-heavy first year units; answer guides retained.