Another survey of consumer law professors fails to find any who always reads consumer contracts before signing them

by Jeff Sovern

Regular blog subscribers may recall that last year, at Richard Alderman's Teaching Consumer Law Conference, I asked two questions of attendees about whether they read contracts or required disclosures (those results are available here). James Nehf generously allowed me to ask the same questions at his IACL conference last week.  The IACL conference has more attendees from overseas and fewer US law professors, so the responses offer a look at a somewhat different population. The number of the respondents to the questions was small: thirteen for one and fifteen for the other, so take this with some salt, but here are the results:

How often do you read contracts before agreeing to them (e.g., before clicking "I agree" on a web site or to obtain wifi access, a rental car contract, a credit card contract)?

N = 13

Do you read required disclosures before entering into consumer transactions?

N = 15

Now here are the responses combined with the responses from last year:

How often do you read contracts before agreeing to them (e.g., before clicking "I agree" on a web site or to obtain wifi access, a rental car contract, a credit card contract)?

N = 34

Do you read required disclosures before entering into consumer transactions?

N = 38

Not one respondent always reads the contracts or disclosures; in contrast, more than half said they rarely or never read the contracts or disclosures (nearly two thirds reported that they rarely or never read contracts).  And yet courts act as if everyone reads contracts.