Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2018
Abstract
I have been mentoring fledgling transactional lawyers in both law
school and law firm settings for a long time. Over the years, I have
recognized that the most significant challenge to their development and
success usually is not their mastery of the substantive laws and regulations
applicable to their transactions. Rather, most often their biggest hurdle is
their lack of transactional context. Without context for the material being
studied or applied, appropriately integrated into the transaction being
examined, the student or young lawyer is easily lost in a morass of
confusion and left to struggle with any number of issues, including:
• How are the laws and regulations relevant to what the
transaction is all about?
• Frankly, what is the transaction all about? Why are the parties
doing it? What do they really want to achieve?
• And what is the transactional lawyer’s role in bringing it to
fruition? Why are we even in the room? What value do we
add?
Publication Title
Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law
Volume
20
Issue
Special Report
Article Number
1146
First Page
611
Last Page
625
Suggested Bluebook Citation
Andrew M. Kaufman, Context, Integration and the Big Three Questions: An Approach to Teaching Transactional Law, 20 Transactions: TENN. J. Bus. L. 611 (2018).