Dr Nicholas Sage

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time) and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is freely available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. It does not require permission. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

How to apply: Priority will be given initially to LLM, MSc Regulation and MSc Law and Finance students on a first-come-first-served allocation.

Spaces permitting, requests from all other students will be processed on the same first-come-first-served allocation from 10am on Thursday 1 October 2026

By submitting an application, students are confirming that they meet any pre-requisites specified. Providing an additional written statement will not aid a student's chances of being accepted onto a course, and statements are not read.

Deadline for application: Not applicable

For queries contact: Law.llm@lse.ac.uk

Private law—the law that governs private interactions, including contract, torts or civil wrongs, property, and unjust enrichment—is fundamental to our legal system, supplying many of its basic legal concepts. Private law shapes all relationships between individuals, and between businesses, as well as the character of our economy and society more broadly.

Key Issues in Private Law is LSE's flagship private law seminar. It is co-taught by Dr Nick Sage together with other LSE faculty who lead seminars in their respective areas of expertise. Past teachers have included Professor Hugh Collins (Cassel Chair of Commercial Law), Professor Dame Sarah Worthington, Professor Emmanuel Voyiakis, and Dr Alex Waghorn. The course is run as a genuine academic seminar where learning occurs through discussions with students, who are expected to prepare for and contribute in each session.  

The course examines current doctrinal controversies but also considers more general principles and themes that run across the whole of private law. The topics covered will vary from year to year but in the past we have addressed issues such as the following:

• Leading theories of contract
• 'Relational' and 'network' contracts
• Liability for nonfeasance in tort law
• Fiduciary duties and associated equitable remedies 
• Principles of property acquisition and creation

The course should be valuable both for students from civil law systems who are looking to learn more about the common law, and for common lawyers seeking to enhance their understanding of their legal system’s foundations. 

20 hours of classes in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Essay (2000 words).

Charles Fried, Contract as Promise (Harvard UP 1981)

Pakistan International Airlines v Times Travel [2023] AC 101

Guido Calabresi, The Costs of Accidents (Yale UP 1970)

Hedley Byrne & Co Heller & Partners [1964] AC 465 

Thomas W Merrill & Henry E Smith, ‘Optimal Standardization in the Law of Property’ (2000) 110 Yale LJ 1

Exam (100%), duration: 150 Minutes in the Spring exam period.