Law of Agency

🧾 Law of Agency: Authority, Representation, and Liability in Legal Relations

🧭 Course Overview

This class introduces the Law of Agency, the body of doctrine governing how one person, the agent, acts on behalf of another, the principal, to create, alter, or extinguish legal relations with third parties. Agency law forms the connective tissue between individual will and institutional action, defining the limits of consent, authority, and accountability.

This course explores how agency arises by agreement, implication, or operation of law; how authority is expressed and interpreted; and how liability is allocated among principals, agents, and third parties in contractual and tortious contexts. Students will examine both fiduciary duties and the commercial implications of representation across employment, corporate, and trust relationships.

🎓 Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Define and identify agency relationships, distinguishing them from employment, bailment, and independent contracting.
2. Explain the creation and scope of authority, including express, implied, apparent, and ratified authority.
3. Analyze fiduciary duties of agents, including loyalty, disclosure, and obedience to lawful instructions.
4. Evaluate principal liability for acts of the agent, including through ratification and estoppel.
5. Apply doctrines of notice and imputation to determine when knowledge is legally attributed to the principal.
6. Discuss termination of agency, by act of the parties, expiration, or operation of law, and its effect on third-party rights.

🧩 Topics Covered

• Nature and formation of the agency relationship
• Scope and types of authority
• Duties and obligations of agent and principal
• Liability of principal and agent to third parties
• Notice, ratification, and estoppel in agency
• Termination and revocation of authority
• Agency in corporations, trusts, and commercial dealings

📚 Format & Materials

• Supplement: Case readings and interpretive commentary from Basilikos Nomos Institute
• Delivery: Lecture and analytical workshop format
• Duration: 24 classes | Self-paced study