LAWS11066 - Contracts

General Information

Unit Synopsis

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

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 1
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 4
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
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).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 3 - 2023

Term 3 - 2023 Profile
Online

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).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

This information will not be available until 8 weeks before term.
To see assessment details from an earlier availability, please search via a previous term.

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University’s Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 1 - 2022 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 90.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 26.67% response rate.

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.

Source: SUTE
Feedback
more summarised study guides with more info in the textbook
Recommendation
The study guides are reviewed annually for improvements for the next iteration.
Action Taken
The study guides are being converted to Google documents, and the annual review will again take place. While some students wish shorter study guides, others (like the comment below) prefer comprehensiveness. I will continue to monitor student feedback on the issue.
Source: SUTE
Feedback
AJ is an awesome motivator. Her energy and enthusiasm often gabe me the ectra oomph I needed. The study guides were comprehensive and an excellent resource for supporting my study (because the key points were explained in detail) In other courses the study guides were quite brief, which doesnt suploet my personal style of learning. Also AJ added her own flavour with puns and one liners. These 'Dad Jokes' did wonders for lightening the heavy material. Condensing A&B seemed to work really well and not compromise the coverage of important aspects.
Recommendation
The study guides are reviewed annually for improvements for the next iteration.
Action Taken
The study guides are being converted to Google documents, and the annual review will again take place.
Source: SUTE
Feedback
Quite a large subject. I wish I had appreciated this more from the beginning so I could have done this subject on it's own and have been able to give it the effort that it required.
Recommendation
Students are advised of the challenging nature of this unit in the first study guide and first zoom tutorial. Unit coordinator emphasises the need for good time management skills to complete the unit successfully.
Action Taken
Students continue to be advised of the challenging nature of the unit from week 1 onwards.
Source: SUTE
Feedback
I think the best part of the unit was that it was combined with A and B contract law. In the past I have hesitated to do contract law because it is spread out over two years or to do a bespoke course at some universities cost three times as much. So I was very excited when I realise CQ University offers contract law in one unit. Many people who study contract management, would greatly appreciate being able to get a university standard qualification in contract law in conjunction with their other studies.
Recommendation
The combined unit structure will be retained for future iterations. The unit does cover a significant amount of learning material, but as per the previous item, the UC advises the weekly time requirement and importance of good time management from week 1 of term.
Action Taken
No action required.
Source: SUTE T1/2022
Feedback
Contracts was an excellent course, it is a quite an intensive course however I do believe the workload was doable/reasonable within the weekly allocated time. I think Teams was very useful - it's far superior to Moodle forums in my opinion. it enabled much better interaction with students and the lecturer. I think the most important part of being successful in this course is the first few weeks of it. In particular, the skills building tasks, weekly tasks and the feedback which was provided.
Recommendation
The unit will continue the emphasis on Teams for general communication, skills building discussions, practice IRACs and feed-forward.
Action Taken
Nil.
Source: SUTE T1/2022
Feedback
AJ is an excellent tutor who goes above and beyond to assist students. Her depth of knowledge and expertise is very impressive. The content is way too heavy for the time allocated.
Recommendation
The content is challenging in this unit, although we now have a 2-hour weekly tutorial rather than a 1-hour in order to provide additional lecturer contact time to discuss content. Students will continue to be advised that the unit requires good time management skills and keeping up with the reading from week 1 onwards.
Action Taken
Nil.
Unit learning Outcomes
This information will not be available until 8 weeks before term.
To see Learning Outcomes from an earlier availability, please search via a previous term.