Wayne State University Law School

AIM HIGHER

John F. Dolan

Distinguished Professor of Law
Office: Room 3217
Telephone: (313) 577-4856
E-mail: j.dolan@wayne.edu

Homepage URL

Degrees and Certifications

LL.B., University of Illinois College of Law


Courses Taught

Syllabi for current courses are available on Professor Dolan’s website under “Courses.” Click on the course name.
Commercial Systems
Property Law
Secured Transactions
Impact of Religion on Law (Seminar)


CV

Biography

As a student, Professor Dolan was a core board editor of the University of Illinois Law Review and a member of his school’s national moot court team. While he was a 3L, he married a piano major at the University, Carole Ann Winke. They have three children and ten grandchildren.

After a federal clerkship and 10 years of private practice, he joined the Wayne State law faculty, partly at the urging of his law school classmate, Professor Alan Schenk. Wayne State students, the Law School, and the University have honored Professor Dolan with various teaching awards. Currently, he teaches First-year Property, Secured Transactions, Commercial Systems, and a seminar, The Impact of Religion on Law.

Boring details of Professor Dolan's scholarship and other career accomplishments are available in the curriculum vitae posted on his home page.


Books
  • Users' Handbook for Documentary Credits Under UCP 600.
    Users' Handbook for Documentary Credits Under UCP 600.

    Commercial letters of credit remain a rather arcane subject. International bankers and many experienced commercial lawyers understand them and understand the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP 600) that usually govern them; but many buyers, sellers, and lawyers, those new to international sales as well as many with experience in international sales, are sufficiently unfamiliar with the subject that they will benefit from a users’ handbook. The perceived need is for an introduction to international sales, international payments, and the commercial letter of credit. The Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce commissioned this users’ handbook to fill the need.

  • The Law of Letters of Credit: Commercial and Standby Credits
    The Law of Letters of Credit: Commercial and Standby Credits (A.S. Pratt & Sons,) 2007 4th edition

    The standby letter of credit is a commercial bank product critical to the financing of domestic commerce. The commercial letter of credit plays a critical role in trans-Pacific and North-South trade. The 4th edition of the often cited treatise, The Law of Letters of Credit, explains letters of credit and addresses comprehensively and with massive citation of authority all of the issues that have arisen in the marketplace, the banking house, and the courtroom.

  • Core Concepts of Commercial Law: Past, Present and Future, Cases and Materials
    Core Concepts of Commercial Law: Past, Present and Future, Cases and Materials (Thomson-West) April 2004 co-authored with Professors Bruce A. Markell and Lawrence Ponoroff

    This book introduces students to commercial law and provides a modicum of Uniform Commercial Code learning. Much of the text emphasizes principles rather than the rules of commercial law. This emphasis is appropriate because the principles endure, whereas the rules change from state to state and time to time. The book, nevertheless, is full of rules, with lots of practical applications.


Other Publications

Identifying the Applicant, DCInsight (April – June 2008)

Negotiation Credits under UCP 600, DCInsight 4 (January – March 2007), reprinted in Insights into UCP 600, at 213 (ICC Pub. No. 682) 2008

Tethering the Fraud Inquiry in Letter of Credit Law, 121 BANKING & FIN. L. REV. (Osgoode Hall) 479 (2006).

The Vice of Subrogation: Interfering with Risk Allocation Post Payment, 1 J. PAYMENT SYS L. 229 (2005).

Negotiation Credits, Value, and Nominated Banks, DCInsight 22 (Oct. – Dec. 2004).

Book Review, [A. Mugasha, The Law of Letters of Credit and Bank Guarantees (2003)], 20 BANKING & FIN. L. REV. (Osgoode Hall Law School) 177 (2004).

Standby Credits Do Not Protect Landlords from the Bankruptcy Code’s Lease Cap, 120 BANKING L.J. 383 (2003).

A Principled Exception to the Strict Compliance Rule in Trilateral Letter of Credit Transactions, 18 BANKING & FIN. L. REV. 245 (Osgoode Hall) (2003).

Letters of Credit and the Bankruptcy Code’s Lease Cap: A Response to Professor Bartell, 120 BANKING L.J. 842 (2003).

Impersonating the Drawer: A Comment on Professor Geva’s Paper “Consumer Liability in Unauthorized Electronic Funds Transfers,” 38 CANADIAN BUS. L. J. 282 (University of Toronto) (2003).

Negotiation Letters of Credit, 119 BANKING L.J. 407 (2002).

How Negotiation Letters of Credit Can Go Wrong: Pan Pacific Specialties Ltd v. Shandong Machinery & Equipment I/E Corp., 17 BANKING & FIN. L. REV. (Osgoode Hall Law School) 129 (2001).

Financing for Commercial Hoi Poloi – Negotiable Drafts and Letters of Credit, 118 BANKING L.J. 199 (2001).

Analyzing Bank Drafted Letter of Credit Rules, The International Standby Practice (ISP98), 45 WAYNE L. REV. 1865 (1999) (Symposium).

A Study in Subrogation Mostly in Letter of Credit and Other Abstract Obligation Transactions, 64 MO. L. REV. 789 (1999).

Security Interests in Letter-of-Credit Rights, 74 CHI.-KENT L. REV.1035 (1999). (Symposium)

Fundamentals of the Uniform Commercial Code (Presented at the 1998 Commercial Law Conference, Australian National University Law School, Canberra, April 1998, published in Perspectives on Commercial Law (1999), a record of the conference proceedings.

A Comparison of UCP 500 and New U.S. Article 5, [1999] J. BUS. L. 521 (November 1999).

Basic Concepts of Commercial Law (w/ Ponoroff) (West Group 1998) (and Teachers Manual, revised 2000) (Supplement 2000).

A Voluntary Filing System for Secured Transactions in the European Union (w/ Vegter), 6 EUROPEAN REV. PRIV. L. 195 (1998).

The UN Convention on Independent Bank Undertakings: Do States with Mature Letter of Credit Regimes Need It?, 13 BANKING & FIN. L. REV. 1 (1997) (Osgoode Hall Law School).

Teaching Commercial Law in the Third Year: A Short Report on a Business Organizations Commercial Law Clinic (w/ McNair), 45 J. LEGAL ED. 283 (1995).

Weakening the Letter of Credit Product: The New Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits, INT'L BUS. L.J. (No.2 1994) (in English with French sidebars).

International Rules for Letters of Credit, The UCP: A Final Report (w/ van Huizen), 9 BANKING & FIN. L. REV. 173 (Osgoode Hall) (1994).

Changing Commercial Practices and the Uniform Commercial Code, 26 LOYOLA OF LOS ANGELES L. REV. 501 (1993) (Symposium).

Legislative Developments in Letter of Credit Law: An Interim Report, 8 BANKING & FIN. L. REV. (Osgoode Hall) 62 (1992).

Advising, Paying, Negotiating and Other Banks: The Correspondent in the Letter of Credit Transaction, 108 BANKING L.J. 396 (1992).

Efforts at International Standardization of Bank Guarantees, 4 BANKING & FIN. L. REV. (Osgoode Hall) 237 (1990).

Documentary Credit Fundamentals - Comparative Aspects, 3 BANKING & FIN. L. REV. (Osgoode Hall) 121 (1989).

Letter of Credit Disputes Between the Issuer and Its Customer: The Issuer's Rights under the Misnamed "Bifurcated Standard," 105 BANKING L.J. 380 (1988).

Letters of Credit Practice: Torts, Crimes, and Some Other Don'ts, 104 BANKING L.J. 36 (1987).

Standby Letters of Credit and Fraud (Is the Standby Only Another Invention of the Goldsmiths in Lombard Street?), 7 CARDOZO L. REV. 1 (1986).

Letters of Credit, Article 5 Warranties, Fraud, and the Beneficiary's Certificate, 41 BUS. LAW. 347 (1986).

Strict Compliance with Letters of Credit: Striking a Fair Balance, 102 BANKING L.J. 18 (1985).

Book Review, [M. Kurkela, Letters of Credit Under International Trade Law (1985)], 21 Texas Int'l B.J. 203 (1985).

The UCC's Consignment Rule Needs an Exception for Consumers, 44 OHIO ST. L.J. 21 (1983).

A Good Faith Purchase Study: True Owners and the Warehouse Lien, 18 HOUSTON L. REV. 267 (1981).

Book Review, [R. Henson, Documents of Title under the Uniform Commercial Code (1983)], ALI-ABA CLE Review, Apr. 13, 1984, at 2, col. 1. Survey of Commercial Transactions, 26 WAYNE L. REV. 589 (1981).

The UCC Framework: Conveyancing Principles and Property Interests, 59 BOSTON U. L. REV. 811 (1979).

The UCC and the Concept of Possession in the Marketing and Financing of Goods, 56 TEXAS L. REV. 1147 (1978).

Good Faith Purchase and Warehouse Receipts: Thoughts on the Interplay of Articles 2, 7 and 9 of the UCC, 30 HASTINGS L.J. 1 (1978).

Section 9-307(1): The UCC's Obstacle to Agricultural Commerce in the Open Market, 72 NW. U.L. REV. 706 (1977).

The Merchant Class of Article 2: Farmers, Doctors, and Others, 1977 WASH. U.L.Q. 1.

Survey of Commercial Transactions, 22 WAYNE L. REV. 305 (1976).

Note, The Effect of the Erie Doctrine on the Application of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 1964 U. ILL. L.F. 443.