2024 Contract Law Question 5 — LawShortcut Independent Model Answer
The paper's reform essay. This answer takes privity and third-party litigation funding — two doctrines that both need reform for opposite reasons: in one the courts have quietly built escape routes, in the other they have refused to move and pointed to the Oireachtas.
Scenario summary
Question 5 is the paper’s reform essay. It sets no facts and names nobody to advise. What it wants is a position on whether the present law should be changed, worked out through decided cases and legislation rather than asserted.
Three subjects are offered and candidates must deal with any two: (a) the rule in Tweddle v Atkinson — privity of contract — as it stands in Irish law; (b) contracts with third parties to fund litigation; and (c) good faith in the performance of contractual obligations.
This model answer takes (a) privity and (b) litigation funding. Both end in reform, but the defects are of different kinds: in privity the courts have quietly built their own escape routes, so reform means gathering them into a statute; in funding they have refused to move at all and said the Oireachtas must. With 25 marks in play each topic is worth roughly ten, the balance going to the argument and its handling of authority.
Candidates are asked to take any two of those three subjects and comment on whether the law governing them stands in need of reform, illustrating the answer with relevant case law or legislation.
This is a LawShortcut scenario summary written in our own words. For the exact examined wording, use the official King’s Inns paper linked above.
What this model answer covers
Issues and structure addressed in the full LawShortcut model answer:
- Reading the Question
- Part (a) — Privity: a rule the courts have spent a century avoiding
- Part (b) — Litigation funding: a public-policy rule outliving its rationale
- Conclusion
- Where the 25 marks live
- Authorities relied on
- The reusable answer structure
- Common ways to lose marks
Read the complete LawShortcut model answer to this question — reading the question, issue spotting, the applicable law, application to the facts and conclusions — inside the King’s Inns Contract Law Model Answer Vault.
Part of the King’s Inns Contract Law Model Answer Vault — 30 independently authored model answers, 2020—2025.
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