Today's lesson focused on the defenses available to a borrower against a holder in due course or a bona fide purchaser for value. I first reviewed the requirements for a holder of commercial paper to be considered a holder in due course(HDC) and then on the board outlined a hypothetical wherein a buyer who signs a promissory note , but who has defenses to payment, is sued by a HDC. I addressed how the personal defenses are unavailable but defenses such as forgery, alteration, and bankruptcy remain. Nina raised interesting questions about the fairness of the HDC doctrine, and we discussed the policy favoring negotiability . We then worked on exercises applying today's lesson to other fact patterns involving defenses available against a HDC.