Book excerpt: Responding to the call to place more emphasis on practical skills, Contracts and Commercial Transactions is a groundbreaking text that immerses the reader in real agreements made between sophisticated parties--so the reader can develop the ability to read, understand, and draft contracts effectively. Drawing upon their collective experiences in the classroom and the boardroom as well as in law-firm and in-house practice, authors David Zarfes and Michael L. Bloom, in Contracts and Commercial Transactions, explore actual agreements between sophisticated parties. Along the way, they teach the reader to read and understand contracts, with an emphasis on how a decision maker--be it a judge, arbitrator, corporate executive, or senior partner--might later understand those same contracts. Contracts and Commercial Transactions features: Actual agreements, formatted as whole documents, that support the exercise of contract reading and analysis Insight and advice from expert practitioners, from law firms such as Sidley Austin and Simpson Thacher and companies such as Microsoft and JPMorgan Chase , that emphasize the realities of legal practice from the perspective of "real-world" lawyers Explanations and analysis from esteemed academics, at law schools such as Chicago and NYU, that explain the nuances of legal matters that pertain to contractual documents Focus points that preface each contract highlight key aspects of the document Methodical and repeated exposure to provisions that teach the reader to recognize and understand contractual concepts A consistent emphasis on the "building block" provisions typically found in contracts Drafting tips integrated throughout the book