Excellence and innovation in transactional law

Building a career in law, finance, and legal education

Tina Stark Weisenfeld was born in New York City in 1953. After graduating with honors from Brown University and earning her juris doctor from New York University School of Law, where she was a contributing editor to the Journal of International Law & Politics, Stark clerked for Judge Jacob D. Fuchsberg of the New York State Court of Appeals.

Stark joined Barrett Smith Schapiro Simon & Armstrong as an associate attorney. Later, she worked at Irving Trust Company as a commercial banker and at the firm Chadbourne & Parke LLP as a corporate law partner. Her transactional practice included corporate counseling, acquisitions and dispositions, recapitalizations, and financing transactions. After Chadbourne, Stark ran her own consulting business and taught courses in transactional skills at Fordham Law School. Her teaching drew upon her legal and financial experience, emphasizing the relationship between law and business. She would later hold teaching appointments at Boston University School of Law, the Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, and Emory University School of Law. 

“Tina spoke passionately about the need for students who wanted to become deal lawyers to have an appropriate curricular path—that is, one that would give them the foundational knowledge and the basic skills necessary for them to practice transactional law,” says Sue Payne, William and Jane Carney Professor of Transactional Law and Practice and executive director of the Center for Transactional Law and Practice. “From the beginning, Tina was always on fire about the fact that law schools designed to train litigators were not serving the students who wanted to do transactional work.”

By the mid-1990s, Stark had built an international reputation as an expert in legal education and the teaching of transactional law and skills. New York City Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye appointed Stark as a member of The Professional Education Project, a committee that studied New York’s legal education curriculum and made recommendations for mandatory continuing education for all New York-admitted lawyers.

Stark was a long-time consultant and advisor to bar associations and legal employers. She received many accolades, including the Burton Award for Outstanding Contributions to Legal Writing Education (2012) and The Golden Pen Award (2019). Stark was also featured in the 2012 nationwide study, “What the Best Law Teachers Do.”

Writing the definitive guide on contract drafting

If you have taken a transactional law class in the past two decades, there is a good chance that you have read Tina Stark’s book, Drafting Contracts: How and Why Lawyers Do What They Do. In 2006, when Aspen first published the textbook, few law schools offered a course specifically on contract and transactional drafting. But professors quickly realized the value of Stark’s work and incorporated it into their own classrooms. Some even reached out to Stark personally for mentorship and advice.

“When I first started teaching contract drafting at Northwestern in 2005, I had written many contracts during my years as an in-house attorney, but I had no idea how to go about teaching contract drafting,” says Payne. “I learned that someone named Tina Stark was writing a basic contract drafting textbook and would be holding a conference on teaching transactional law and skills at Northwestern that spring. I attended the conference and met Tina there. … Afterward, I wrote to thank her, and she offered, most generously, to let me use the manuscript of her book as the text for my contract drafting class.”

Stark’s book has become the go-to guide on contract drafting, with some even referring to the work simply as “Tina’s Book” or posing the question “What would Tina do?” when drafting their legal documents. In addition to Drafting Contracts, Stark also published a number of law review articles and served as editor-in-chief and co-author of Negotiating and Drafting Contract Boilerplate.

Joining Emory Law

Tina Stark joined Emory Law in 2007 as the school’s first professor in the practice of law. Professors William J. Carneyand A. James Elliott helped recruit Stark, identifying her as the perfect person to develop and administer a new program that would train law students to practice transactional law.

Stark was the founding executive director of Emory Law’s Center for Transactional Law and Practice. She created a curriculum that allows students to earn a Certificate in Transactional Law and Skills, bridging the gap between doctrine and law practice. As part of this curriculum, students take doctrinal classes such as business associations, corporate finance, contract drafting, and deal skills. Stark spoke about this curriculum at the 2008 Conference on the Teaching of Transactional Law and Skills, which was hosted at Emory Law. (Emory is planning a 9^th Biennial Conference to take place in the spring of 2027). The skills courses prepared students to have immediate impact as transactional attorneys.

The Center for Transactional Law and Practice has become a leader in the field of transactional law and skills education. Carney and his wife, Jane, donated $1million in 2014 to support the Center’s hiring of an assistant director and formation of an advisory board; in 2025, the Carneys donated $6 million to create the William and Jane Carney Center for Business and Transactional Law, which is housed in the Carney Center suite and operates in conjunction with the Carney Center. Since 2008, more than 1,000 students have earned their Certificate in Transactional Law and Skills.

“Many alumni credit Tina with generating and nurturing their interest in transactional law and kept in touch with her over the years,” says Payne, “Certificate graduates have gone on to become successful deal lawyers and members of the business community. We’ve even come full circle, with Certificate graduates now teaching in our program.”

When Stark retired from teaching, Emory Law honored her by creating the “Tina L. Stark Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Transactional Law and Skills.” In recognition of Stark’s considerable achievements and service as a beloved teacher and mentor, the Tina L. Stark Award goes to an educator who is: committed to training students to be practice-ready transactional attorneys; dedicated to engaging, inspiring, motivating, and nurturing students; devoted to teaching with passion, using creative and innovative methods; known for achievement in curriculum or program development and pedagogy; and pledged to advance the cause of transactional law and skills education.

The next Tina L. Stark Award will be presented at the Conference on the Teaching of Transactional Law and Skills in 2027.

Donating her unique collection

Inspired by her interest in the history of contract law, Tina Stark had a personal collection of antique legal documents. Many of these items were “indentures,” which are historical contracts or deeds typically written on a large sheet of vellum or parchment and cut with a jagged or wavy line. Indentures are beautifully decorated and embellished items, with images and calligraphy often appearing on both sides of the document.

“Tina enjoyed bidding for and purchasing these documents on eBay and showing them to those expressing interest,” says Payne. “She entrusted me with some indentures that she wanted to use as awards for our [Emory Law] adjunct professors. When Tina first gave me the indentures, we opened one up on a table, and she passed her hand over it lightly as she read aloud phrases inked in delicate, ornate calligraphy. She was awestruck by the language expressing the party’s obligations, which, although formal, wordy, and rife with legalese, was musical as well. Reading it together transported us both back in time.”

Stark began donating her collection of indentures and other antique legal documents to the Hugh F. MacMillan Law Library in 2017, as part of Emory Law’s centennial celebration. There are two Stark collections at the law library: the Stark and Weisenfeld Collection and the Crackpot Collection.

The Stark and Weisenfeld Collection currently consists of 27 manuscript legal documents on paper and vellum. The indentures are primarily from England, dating between 1602 and 1890. The documents include marital contracts, land purchases, dismissal of charges, and other legal contracts. The Crackpot Collection is a collection of 91 documents from the Garth family – longtime residents of the village of Crackpot in Yorkshire, England. The documents, which include correspondence, contracts, and manor records, date from between 1639 and 1908. Stark purchased the collection in 2015 from an antique document dealer and later donated the items to the law school.

Both collections are currently housed on the fifth floor of the law library. The documents themselves will most likely not be displayed, as they are in a more fragile condition, but scans will likely be used in future displays.

It has been a wonderful opportunity to work with Tina Stark’s collections, as I have been able to learn of her interests and share them with others,” says Anna Sturgill, law librarian for archives and assessment. “The collections are both historically interesting and visually stunning. This collection provides the Emory Law archives with the opportunity to connect students, the Emory community in general, and the public with physical pieces of legal history. It allows them to make connections between the past, their lives now, and the future.”

Remembering Tina Stark

Tina Stark’s career as an attorney and educator spanned decades. Thousands of students and legal professionals have benefited from her vision and leadership. She was known as a generous leader and a true trailblazer. “I admired her for many reasons,” says Payne. “But it was her spirit that inspired me the most.”

See the full gallery at https://bit.ly/4espK4L.