What is a contract?
This is a tricky but important question. In fact, law students usually spend two full semesters in law school (that makes a total of 24 sessions with a law professor) learning Contract Law. The first semester is spent on understanding what constitutes a contract, while the second examines when and how contracts are breached.
In essence, a contract only exists when the following three legal concepts are present together:
Offer and acceptance
Consideration
Intention to form legal relations
The value of a lawyer in a civil litigation matter is that he can ask you the correct questions to get the information required, to see if there is a valid contract to support your claim. He or she can then help you understand if this contract has been breached, which would amount to a legal cause of action, i.e. the facts which entitle you to obtain a remedy in court against another person. Civil claims typically arise from causes of action like breach of contract and torts.
Your lawyer can also help you quantify the amount of money that you can claim, and assess the probability of success of you claiming the amount of money owed to you. Civil claims need to be filed in different courts depending on this sum. Learn more here.
