Seeking Not-for-Profit to Take Part in Penn Law 2011 Redrafting Project

I soon have to start preparing for the fall semester, when I resume my teaching duties at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. I teach one semester a year, and I teach—guess what?—contract drafting.

Since I started teaching at Penn Law, I’ve made a redrafting project part of every semester. The idea is to redraft a contract, or part of a contract, submitted by an organization, then discuss with personnel from that organization what changes we made and why, and what works and doesn’t work in our redraft.

For the first few redrafting projects, we worked with major companies. But I decided that any company that’s interested in having me redraft one of their contracts can jolly well pay me to do that work. It made more sense instead to do the redrafting project with an organization that doesn’t have the resources to pay for such work, or at least has better uses for its money. That’s why in 2009 we worked with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and last year we worked with the World Wildlife Fund. (Go here to find out more about the 2009 redrafting project.)

For the coming semester’s redrafting project, I’d like to work with another not-for-profit that focuses on the environment. To take part, an organization would have to provide me with a suitable contract, walk me through the issues raised, then be available in late November or early December to take part in a conference call with my class. It’s not a big time commitment, and what you’d get out of it is the clearest, more effective contract that money could buy, if you were actually paying anything.

If you’d like to be considered for the 2011 Penn Law redrafting project, please email me.