LEGL470 standard form contracts paper: writing guide
Four questions in one prompt — what a standard form contract is, why companies use them, the risks, the benefits — packed into two-to-three pages with a two-to-four source cap and a textbook the syllabus rules out as one of them.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 11, 2026
How do the four contract questions divide the paper?
The prompt's four questions have a balance built into them that a strong paper preserves. Definition first: a standard form contract is a pre-drafted, non-negotiated agreement offered on take-it-or-leave-it terms — the legal literature's neighbouring concept is the contract of adhesion, and using both terms accurately (all adhesion contracts are standard form; not every standard form contract involves the bargaining-power disparity adhesion implies) is the kind of precision a business-law grader reads for. Why companies use them and their benefits overlap but are not identical questions: the 'why' is operational (transaction-cost reduction, speed at scale, consistency across thousands of customers, reduced negotiation staffing), while 'benefits of incorporating them in your business' invites you to argue from an owner's chair — predictable risk allocation, enforceable uniform terms, easier training and administration. Keeping them separate also gives the short paper its four-part structure for free.
The risks question is where the law actually lives, and it deserves the paper's analytical centre. Courts police standard form contracts through unconscionability and the reasonable-expectations doctrine: terms a drafting party buries, or that no reasonable adherent would knowingly accept, can be struck even in an otherwise enforceable form. That means the business risk is double-sided — the risk to the customer the form is drafted against, and the risk to the company that overreaching terms prove unenforceable exactly when it needs them, plus the reputational cost of terms that read as predatory. A paper that names a doctrine and gives one example of a struck term has answered 'potential risks' at the level the course teaches. One paragraph per risk direction keeps the section inside the page budget. The example can come from your third source.
The formatting constraints are unusually specific and worth treating as graded: two to three pages, 12-point Arial, double-spaced, and a bibliography of two to four resources with the course text explicitly excluded from counting. That exclusion is the brief's research instruction in disguise — it forces at least two genuinely external sources, and legal reference sources (a law school's legal information institute, a doctrine explainer) satisfy it cleanly. The closing exhortation about employer-grade competency is the register note: this paper is being graded as professional writing, so the spelling and punctuation warnings are not boilerplate. Two strong externals plus the doctrine explainer fill the bibliography exactly.
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Define standard form contracts precisely, including their relationship to contracts of adhesion.
- 02Distinguish the operational reasons companies use standard forms from the owner-side benefits of incorporating them.
- 03Analyse the legal risks through the doctrines courts actually apply — unconscionability and reasonable expectations — with an example.
- 04Meet the bibliography rule: two to four resources, with the course text explicitly not counting.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Course-wide instructions that accompany this question
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes. Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages. Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor. The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
Turn the brief into deliverables
- 01A 2-3 page, double-spaced paper in 12-point Arial, per the stated format.
- 02Answers to the prompt's four questions: what a standard form contract is, why companies utilize them, the potential risks, and the benefits of incorporating them in your business.
- 03A bibliography of two to four resources used in drafting, excluding the course text.
- 04Individual work at the employer-grade writing standard the brief describes.
How should definition, use, risk and benefit be sequenced?
Definition, with precision
Define the standard form contract — pre-drafted, non-negotiated, offered at scale — and place the adhesion-contract concept beside it, noting the bargaining-power element that distinguishes them.
Why companies use them
Explain the operational logic: transaction costs, speed and consistency at volume, reduced legal staffing, standardised risk allocation across thousands of identical dealings.
The risks, doctrinally
Analyse both risk directions: terms courts strike under unconscionability or reasonable expectations, the enforcement uncertainty that creates for the drafter, and the reputational exposure of overreaching forms.
The benefits, from the owner's chair
Close the analysis with the incorporation case: predictability, enforceable uniformity, administrative simplicity — honestly weighed against the risks just established.
Which legal sources count toward the bibliography?
Recommended databases
- Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law)
- Law journal databases
- Business law references
Search sequence
- 1.Read the LII adhesion-contract entry for the doctrinal vocabulary — take-it-or-leave-it terms, reasonable expectations, unconscionability.
- 2.Read the LII contract overview to place standard forms within contract formation generally.
- 3.Find one applied source (a law review note or professional analysis) with a real example of a struck or contested standard term.
- 4.Confirm the bibliography counts two to four external resources with the course text excluded.
Reference shortlist
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
adhesion contract (contract of adhesion)
Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School · 2023
The doctrinal core: take-it-or-leave-it terms, the reasonable-expectations doctrine, and unconscionability review — the risks section's authority.
- 02
contract
Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School · 2023
The formation framework that situates standard forms inside ordinary contract law — useful for the definition section's precision.
- 03
Adhesion Contracts, Bad Faith, and Economically Faulty Contracts
Drake Journal of Agricultural Law · 1999
A law-journal treatment with worked examples of adhesion terms courts have policed — the applied depth behind the risks analysis. A PDF; cite the journal, volume and author.
Review before submission
Common mistakes
- Merging the 'why companies use them' and 'benefits' questions into one paragraph — they overlap, but the prompt asks them separately and the second wants the owner's perspective.
- Answering the risks question with 'customers may not read them' when the graded content is what courts do about it: unconscionability, reasonable expectations, unenforceable terms.
- Counting the course text in the bibliography when the brief excludes it explicitly.
- Using the terms 'standard form' and 'adhesion contract' interchangeably without noting the bargaining-power element that separates them.
- Padding toward three pages — the brief's companion instructions in this course famously punish padding, and two tight pages beat three loose ones.
- Treating the format rules (Arial 12, double-spaced, page range) as suggestions in a paper explicitly framed as professional-grade work.
Submission checklist
- All four prompt questions answered, in an order the reader can follow.
- The definition distinguishes standard form from adhesion accurately.
- The risks section names at least one legal doctrine and one example of an unenforceable term.
- Bibliography of 2-4 resources, none of them the course text.
- 2-3 pages, 12-point Arial, double-spaced, proofread to the employer standard the brief invokes.
Use this guide to plan and review your own work. Follow your institution's rules and read our academic-integrity policy.
Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
Reviewed by
Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.