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June 11, 2007
Emory establishes Transactional Law Center, appoints director

by tim hussey

Emory Law has established a Transactional Law Center and has appointed Tina Stark, noted educator of both lawyers and law students, as its executive director. Stark will join the Emory Law faculty this fall as a professor in the practice of law.

The Transactional Law Center is one major component of Emory Law’s strategic plan. Under Stark’s leadership, the Center will build on the Transactional Law Certificate Program and position Emory School of Law as a leader in training transactional lawyers. Stark said that the goal is “to teach Emory’s transactional students to think like deal lawyers. Although the academy prides itself on teaching students to think like lawyers, for the most part we teach students to think like litigators.”

To achieve its goal, Emory will offer business-related courses, courses that focus on both the business and legal issues in a transaction, and sophisticated transactional skills training. Stark said that in creating these courses “the Emory faculty will work closely with practitioners to make sure that the new courses give students the real world training they need.”

“The Transactional Law Center and the Transactional Law Certificate Program place Emory Law at the forefront of innovative legal education by improving the integration of professional skills and traditional training in the law,” said Dean David Partlett. “Coupled with our outstanding program in trial techniques, this new certificate program offers students an additional option to augment their legal education.”

The Transactional Law Center will hold conferences and sponsor research on the teaching of transactional law and skills.

Stark began her career as a commercial banker before graduating from New York University Law School, where she was an editor of the school’s international law journal. She became a partner at Chadbourne & Park LLP, in the corporate department, where she had a broad-based transactional practice with an emphasis on acquisitions, dispositions, recapitalizations and financings. Stark has been teaching transactional skills courses to law students and young lawyers since 1989.

She is the editor-in-chief and co-author of the best-selling treatise, “Negotiating and Drafting Contract Boilerplate,” and is the author of a drafting textbook that Aspen will publish this spring.

Stark will not only teach contract drafting to Emory Law students, but also will train a group of adjunct faculty to teach contract drafting and other transactional skills courses.

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