The Persisting Ideal of Agreement in an Age of Boilerplate

This essay argues that the treatment of boilerplate as a distinct phenomenon in some contract scholarship sheds light on the way we imagine our social relations. In Omri Ben-Shahar's 2007 compilation, Boilerplate: The Foundation of Market Contracts, aspects of the traditional meeting-of-the-minds model persist, notwithstanding the move away from this framework indicated by the differentiation of boilerplate from traditional contract. Much boilerplate scholarship is informed by a narrative of agreement as an ideal involving agency, autonomy, and meaningful choice. Thus, in an age in which form language pervades American life, a narrative of genuine agreement continues to frame a conception of contractual relations.