ContractsProf Blog

Can Mad Men Bring Sexy Back to Contracts?

I am late to the hit AMC series Mad Men; just last week, I started watching the first season on DVD.  I am enjoying the show, and tolerating the unrelenting misogyny as a representation of the period.  That aside, the show definitely has an alluring and sexy aesthetic – partly attributable to the constant smoking and cocktail drinking in well-tailored suits.

I’d love to bring some of this allure into the contracts classroom – without the sex, sexism, smoking and drinking.  And, I just might be able to.  I have it on reliable information that there is an employment contract issue that arises as a sub-plot late in Season 2 and has carried over to Season 3 of the show.  Apparently the story line involves Don Draper refusing to sign an employment contract because it contains a non-compete clause.  When I heard this, I went from liking the show to loving it.

But, this is as informative as my post can be – because I have not yet reached these episodes of the show.  That is why I am asking those of you who read this blog and watch Mad Men to explain in the comments the non-compete sub-plot and name the episodes in which it receives treatment.  We will address non-competes in my class in a few weeks, and I am thinking I just might be able to bring sexy back to Contracts.

[Meredith R. Miller]

Baxendale co-star dies in Hollywood

Longtime pornographic actress Marilyn Chamers died yesterday at age 56.  Chambers helped launch the modern "adult" film industry in 1972 when she was paid $25,000 and a slice of the gross to star in Behind the Green Door.  The Los Angeles Times obituary also notes that Chambers, who was an Ivory Snow model when she appeared in the film, is responsible for the clause now in modeling contracts for products that warrants that the model has never posed nude.

Her first starring film s best known among Contracts professors, of course, as marking the only screen appearance of actor Hadley V. Baxendale.

[Frank Snyder]

Relive your 1L Contracts class at home! With better looking people!

After what has seemed to most Contracts professors an unconscionably long time, the TV series The Paper Chase has finally come out on video.  Technically, it's called "season one" although there was only one season on the original CBS program in 1978-79.  Three additional seasons were run on Showtime starting in 1983, which allowed the protagonist, "Mr. Hart," to graduate Harvard in only four years.

On the Amazon web site (linked above) you can see a riveting clip dealing with (among other things) whether one who performs the service requested by a reward offer can recover if he was unaware of the reward.  The growing tension among the students who offer different answers is . . . palpable. 

It doesn't get any better than this.

[Frank Snyder; h/t Scott Burnham]