What To Do If You Need To Redraft Contract Provisions On The MPT

What To Do If You Need To Redraft Contract Provisions On The MPT

Examinees were asked to redraft contract provisions on the MPT in July 2013 in the Palindrome Recording Contract MPT. Keep reading to see how to tackle this wildcard MPT task!

What To Do If You Need To Redraft Contract Provisions On The MPT

The Palindrome Recording Contract task memo asked examinees to draft a memorandum in which examinees were told to identify the contract provisions that need to be redrafted. Examinees were told for each provision to do the following:

1. redraft the provision, indicating your changes from the original text, and
2. explain the reasons for your redraft, including the legal reasons (if any) for changing the provision, to guide me in conducting negotiations over these points

Examinees were also given a transcript of a client interview, where the client explained its goals and what it wanted the contract to say.

The best way to redraft contract provisions on the MPT is:

• Look at the goals of the party that you are redrafting the provision for. (In the Palindrome Recording Contract MPT, the client was a band that was negotiating with a record label.)
• Isolate the provisions that do not serve those goals.
• Retype the provision but bold any language that you modify. After the provision, pursuant to the MPT instructions, explain why you made the change in the contractual language. .

For example, let’s say a woman wanted to enter into a contract to be hired by a dog walking service to walk dogs. She wanted to be guaranteed a year of employment unless good cause existed to fire her. If a contractual provision said “Employee is an at-will employee and can be fired at any time for any reason” you may redraft it to look like this (with changes in underlined font):

Employee is hired under a contract that guarantees employment for a year unless good cause exists to terminate the employment.

Then you would explain that this contractual provision meets her goals of guaranteed employment absent good cause existing to terminate it.

Of all of the wildcard MPT tasks, redrafting contractual provisions is probably one of the least difficult. It just surprises bar exam takers! So, if you are exposed to this type of MPT ahead of time, you will probably not be as nervous about it coming up. Please check out the July 2013 Palindrome Recording Contract MPT. You can  see the question, a model answer and a sample student answer in our MPT books.

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