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Changing Your Mind: The Law of Regretted Decisions

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E. Allan Farnsworth, Reporter for the Restatement (Second) of Contracts and the author of a three-volume treatise on contracts (the student edition of which is also _very_ highly recommended), here tries to make sense of the legal principles that govern whether or not you can change your mind.

Of course most of the work has to do with contract law, but Farnsworth spreads outward into other fields as needed -- into tort law, for example, to discuss whether you can "change your mind" once you have decided to come to the aid of someone whose life is in danger.

The organization is straightforward. Farnsworth begins by examining why our promises, etc., should be binding in the first place and devotes roughly the first half of the book to discussing the various reasons why we might _want_ to bind our future decisions. Then he devotes the second half to expounding the principles that determine whether or not we _are_ thus bound. (The classification scheme here is his own; it heavily overlaps but is not simply identical with the set of principles you learned, or will learn, in your contracts class. He also discusses the points at which current law does not seem subject to such rationalization and makes some suggestions for improvement.)

The exposition is clear and crisp, the writing is free of legalese, and many of the cases will be familiar from contract and tort casebooks. This book therefore makes a fine companion to first-year law hornbooks.

Grab the student edition of Farnsworth's contracts book while you're at it. I use Calamari first to get essential principles, then turn to Farnsworth for elaboration.