Foreword: The Three and a Half Minute Transaction: Boilerplate and the Limits of Contract Design

The Hofstra Law Review has organized an “Ideas” symposium around our book manuscript “The Three and a Half Minute Transaction” (see http://ssrn.com/abstract=1937900). The idea for this symposium came from a debate that occurred at a faculty workshop at the Hofstra Law School some months ago where we were presenting our book manuscript. The topics of conversation included the following: the future of the current big-law-firm model, what value lawyers add in commercial transactions that use boilerplate contracts, why (and whether) boilerplatecontracts are so slow to change, why law firms do not generally have R&D departments, the resolution of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis and more. The Essays in this symposium are from an exceptional group of scholars and practitioners and we are honored that they use our manuscript as their jumping off point to tackle some of the topics mentioned.

What we provide here is a brief introduction to the manuscript itself.