Skip to Main Content

Contract Law: Uniform Commercial Code (UCC)

About the UCC

The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) is a comprehensive body of law governing commercial transactions, produced by the joint efforts of legal scholars from the Uniform Law Commission and the American Law Institute.  

The UCC consists of eleven "articles", the most commonly referenced of which is Article 2: Sales:

Article 1:

General Provisions

Article 2:      

Sales

Article 2A: 

Leases

Article 3:

Negotiable Instruments

Article 4:

Bank Deposits & Collections

Article 4A:

Funds Transfers

Article 5:

Letters of Credit

Article 6:

Bulk Sales

Article 7: 

Warehouse Receipts, Bill of Lading and Other Documents of Title

Article 8:

Investment Securities

Article 9:

Secured Transactions

UCC AND THE STATES

Like all Uniform Laws, the UCC was developed as model legislation to promote uniformity among the states. Today, all 50 states, and the District of Columbia, have adopted the UCC in some form into their legislative codes.

To see how the UCC appears in a particular state, check the state's annotated code (look for UCC in the index).

To compare states, try any of the following:

Code and Official Comments

Official comments to the UCC are prepared by the editorial board of the ALI / ULC. They are not part of the text of the law, but are there to offer background and explanation for each code section.

Treatises and Hornbooks

Treatises are in-depth treatments of a legal subject written by scholars in the field. Look to the footnotes for references to primary sources (cases, statutes and regulations) and other secondary sources.  Hornbooks are shorter treatises geared toward law students.

The following is a selected list of treatises concentrating on the UCC.  For others related to contracts generally, see the Secondary Sources tab.  

Researching the UCC

This page contains selected resources at NUSL library useful for researching the Uniform Commercial Code. 

 When doing research on the UCC, there are four main tools to use:

  1. The Code itself
  2. Official Comments of the Code editors
  3. Cases interpreting the Code
  4. Treatises, journal articles and other secondary sources

 

Secondary sources are a good place to begin for background and interpretation of the law. 

Case Law

Law Journals

To find law journal and law review articles on the UCC, use any of the following tools available via a link from the Law Library's Research Databases page:

  • Current Index to Legal Periodicals
  • Index to Legal Periodicals
  • LegalTrac
  • HeinOnline's Law Journal Library

HeinOnline, Lexis and Westlaw have selective full-text coverage of law review and law journal articles.

Online Databases

Lexis and Westlaw include specialized databases on commercial law.

LEXIS ADVANCE

From the Home page:  All Practice Areas and Topics tab > Commercial Law (UCC)

WESTLAW NEXT

From the Home page:  Topics > Commercial Law

Citing the UCC

To find the appropriate citation form for the UCC and cases, use:

The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, 20th ed.

Law Reserve, Law Reference and Law Stacks   KF245 .B58

* See Rule 12.9.4 for UCC citation;  See Rule 10 for cases *