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Barry Law Review
Volume 23
Issue 2 A Half-Century of Article 2 of the Uniform
Commercial Code
Article 8
6-25-2018
Foreword
Leticia Diaz
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Leticia Diaz (2018) "Foreword," Barry Law Review: Vol. 23 : Iss. 2 , Article 8.
Available at: https://lawpublications.barry.edu/barrylrev/vol23/iss2/8
79 
FOREWORD 
In the spring of 2018, Barry Law Review hosted a symposium entitled A Half-
Century of Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code. The symposium was part of 
the Thirteenth Annual International Conference on Contracts, hosted by Barry Uni-
versity, Dwayne O. Andreas Law School on February 23 and 24, 2018. The confer-
ence is the largest annual scholarly and educational conference devoted to contract 
law and related areas of commercial law, and brings together leading contracts schol-
ars from the United States and beyond. The law school’s hosting of this conference 
provided the perfect opportunity for a symposium dedicated to contract law.  
The symposium’s topic (Article 2 of the U.C.C.) was a fitting one—Professors 
James J. White and Robert S. Summers were recognized at the conference with life-
time achievement awards for their work on Article 2 of the U.C.C., and the sympo-
sium was dedicated to their achievements. Further, with Article 2 having been 
adopted by state legislatures in the 1950s and 1960s, the Code has now been applied 
in the courts for over half a century, making a retrospective on the Code timely. 
The symposium included presentations by Article 2’s leading scholars: Lisa 
Bernstein, the Wilson-Dickenson Professor of Law, and Aaron Director Research 
Scholar, at the University of Chicago Law School, and International Research Fel-
low, Said School of Business, at the University of Oxford; Henry Gabriel, Professor 
of Law at Elon University; Victor P. Goldberg, the Jerome L. Greene Professor of 
Transactional Law at Columbia Law School; Robert A. Hillman, the Edwin H. 
Woodruff Professor of Law at Cornell Law School; Steven Walt, the Percy Jones Jr. 
Professor of Law and Class of 1948 Professor of Scholarly Research in Law at the 
University of Virginia School of Law; and James J. White, the Robert A. Sullivan 
Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Michigan Law School. One attendee 
remarked that of all the symposiums he had attended, this one included the greatest 
collection of scholars. The Barry Law Review staff now proudly presents the articles 
by these distinguished scholars who presented at the symposium. 
Professors Bernstein and Goldberg, in their papers, are critical of Article 2, or at 
least certain portions of it. Professor Bernstein, in The Myth of Trade Usages: A Talk, 
is critical of courts considering trade usage in resolving commercial disputes, assert-
ing that there is little, if any, empirical evidence to support that such usages exist, 
that their substance can be proven in court at a reasonable cost, or that merchants 
even want courts to rely on trade usage. Professor Goldberg, in Remedies in the 
UCC: Some Critical Thoughts, takes aim at several of Article 2’s remedies provi-
sions, as well as courts’ and scholars’ interpretations of those provisions, and argues 
that the canon of interpretation that absurd results should be avoided can be used to 
correct these mistakes. 
Professors White and Gabriel, in their papers, look at the past, and discuss the 
failed attempt to revise Article 2. Professor White, in The Revision of Article 2: Com-
mercial Sellers vs. Consumer Buyers, discusses how the Uniform Law Commission 
1
: Foreword
Published by Digital Commons @ Barry Law, 2018
80 Barry Law Review Vol. 23, No. 2 
unintentionally stumbled into the fight between consumers and commercial sellers 
during its revision attempt, and provides insight into why the attempt failed. Profes-
sor Gabriel, the Reporter for the revisions from 1999 to 2003 and a member of the 
Drafting Committee from 1992 to 1999, explains in Uniform Commercial Code Ar-
ticle Two Revisions: The View of the Trenches, why a second drafting committee 
was created and what it attempted to accomplish with the 2003 revisions. He also 
explains the reasons why the political impediments to law revision prevented the 
revisions’ enactment, concluding that the most important lesson might be that there 
was not a real need for the changes they sought to bring about. 
Professors Hillman and Walt, in their papers, look to the future. Professor Hill-
man, in Article 2 of the UCC:  Some Thoughts on Success or Failure in the Twenty-
First Century, discusses whether Article 2 can succeed in the twenty-first century. 
He argues that some Code sections have worked better than others and some are 
better suited for the future than others, and any revision attempt should only include 
problematic sections, rather than a wholesale revision. Professor Walt, in Importing 
Uniform Sales Law into Article 2, evaluates the potential impact of the United Na-
tions Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods on domestic sales 
law, and argues for the use of interpretations of uniform sales law to interpret com-
parable defaults in Article 2.  
This symposium has shown that after more than half a century of Article 2 of the 
U.C.C., it still evokes strong opinions among scholars. The Barry Law Review is 
proud to have played a part in this continuing debate over the Code. 
 
 
Dean Leticia M. Diaz, J.D., Ph.D. 
Barry University, 
Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law 
2
Barry Law Review, Vol. 23, Iss. 2 [2018], Art. 8
https://lawpublications.barry.edu/barrylrev/vol23/iss2/8


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