The Battle of the Forms—There Is a Purpose

Abstract

This article provides an alternative approach to the daunting task of teaching business undergraduates a fundamental appreciation of the flexibility of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and the ability of the UCC to adapt to the needs of commerce by facilitating fair, efficient transactions. Paradoxically, we suggest using one of the most difficult sections of the UCC, Section 2-207, the often discussed ''Battle of the Forms,'' to make UCC concepts and the relationships of those concepts to modern business transactions easier to understand. This alternative approach is also designed to help students appreciate the challenges of establishing rules to assure fair and efficient transactions and how changes in the way transactions occur impact the laws and how the laws impact the changes. This article also presents exercises, questions, and illustrative flowcharts used successfully over several years in undergraduate business law classes. These tools produce an integrated method for presenting UCC Section 2-207. While no sane individual has ever professed a love for UCC study, students and faculty have expressed tolerance and a palpable appreciation for these methods.

Visualisation of law and legal Process: An opportunity missed

“…The legal subject domain with the highest frequency of information visualisations was that of contract law. However, many of these could be characterised as focusing on smaller and often simpler sub-components of what are much larger processes or subject areas, such as identifying whether particular terms are consistent or cancel each other out in a contract, 61 identifying of only the start (date of signing), notice period and end points of a contract on a timeline 56 shown in Figure 6, or the pathway process shown in Figure 7 for international money transfer of loan contract funds from a debtors bank to the creditor's bank. 50 Diagrams in the area of Criminal Law and Procedure were observed almost as often, but appeared more mature.…”