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 2 - 2025

Term 2 - 2025 Profile
Online
Term 1 - 2026 Profile
Online
Term 2 - 2026 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

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Written Assessment 10%
2. Written Assessment 40%
3. Examination 50%

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

To view Past Exams,
please login
Previous Feedback

Term 1 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 80.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 13.33% 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: T1/2024 SUTE data
Feedback
I couldn't be more grateful to have had AJ as my first term lecturer for my law degree. Her enthusiasm, dedication to the students and passion for law is so appreciated. Contracts has been an enjoyable subject but without AJ's thorough teaching it would have been incredibly difficult. I felt it was extremely critical to receive the personalized feedback on weekly content at the start of the unit and again on formal assessments. I really hope that CQU can encourage and strive to allocate enough resources/time for the lecturers to all be able to provide this as it has been an imperative part of my learning journey, especially so early on in the degree. I am daunted at the idea of taking on other subjects where the lecturers may not be as engaged with providing support and feedback and will really miss the environment that AJ has created this term.
Recommendation
Retain focus on pastoral care, connection and community-building via Teams, formative work and general student support.
Action Taken
Focus on pastoral care, connection and community-building retained.
Source: T1/2024 SUTE data
Feedback
some of the videos had noise in the background and was really distracting to the point where I just switched it off and worked through the slideshows and other reading material instead.
Recommendation
Review the videos to ascertain which are the affected ones.
Action Taken
Videos isolated and discussions were held with the LDI/LTF staff. Redevelopment of materials will occur for 2026.
Source: Student evaluations
Feedback
The unit is very content heavy, understandably so. Perhaps a 'nudge' to students to 'start content early' as it is easy to fall behind. The study guides are very wordy; some of these could be slimmed down to give the main idea of the concepts. The individual feedback (given on TEAMS) for the IRACs each week is highly valuable and constructive. This supports students with their structure/ formatting of their IRACs, use of AGLC4, and the ability to apply the feedback in student's written mid-term assessment. The answer guides for each week's IRACs are really useful in aiding the construction of notes for the final exam. They are very clearly set out, the content which is revised, and discussions which are added from the workshop. The weekly workshop is engaging.
Recommendation
Students find the unit quite challenging given the volume and breadth of content. The content is largely unavoidable given the Legal Profession Admission Board requirements for the unit. However, more emphasis was provided this term in alerting students to the need to start early and devote sufficient study time each week to this unit. The study guides and videos are being redeveloped for 2026. The Teams feedback exercise and answer guides will be retained.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Student evaluations
Feedback
I really enjoyed my tutor's teaching style. She was engaging and warm in her delivery of the weekly sessions and also helpful, as she provided the weekly tutorial answer guides which assist to cement the weekly sessions. Her knowledge of the subject was exceptional in my opinion.
Recommendation
Emphasis on student connection and pastoral care retained as it is particularly important in content-heavy first year units; answer guides retained.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Identify and discuss prerequisites and formal requirements for contracting, interpretation, performance and discharge of contracts, remedies for breach, and differentiate the various basic contract law theories.
  2. Interpret contract law questions and dispute scenarios, implementing statute and case law to explain advice.
  3. Interpret legal texts, databases, develop research strategies, locate appropriate legal authorities to discuss contract questions and problems.
  4. Develop structured arguments to discuss and explain responses to contract problems, communicate effectively in writing.

This unit satisfies the Priestley 11 requirements for Contracts as approved by the Legal Practitioners Admissions Board.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4
1 - Written Assessment •
2 - Written Assessment • • • •
3 - Examination • • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4
1 - Communication •
2 - Problem Solving • •
3 - Critical Thinking • •
4 - Information Literacy •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10