Module LAW1041: LEGAL SKILLS

Department: Law

LAW1041: LEGAL SKILLS

Tied To

• L3M1: Sociology with Law
• M101: Law
• M155: Law (European Legal Studies)

Pre-requisites

Corequisites

Excluded Combinations

Aims

• This module provides students with a 'hands on' grounding in research, analysis, writing and IT skills. It seeks to establish key analytical and transferable skills essential not only in the students' legal studies but beyond. It also introduces students to the English legal system and the diverse forms legal analysis can take. It aims to promote students' critical awareness of the social and political context in which law operates by exploring both the reasoning employed by judges and lawyers and on other legal methods which identify law as a historical, sociological, cultural and political phenomenon.

Content

• Introduction to law and the English legal system; Law, order and reality; Dispute resolution: the courts and adjudication; Diversity in the legal profession; Reading cases and interpreting statutes; Law in everyday life; Wider implications of the rule of law.

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of this course, successful students should be able to recognise the key legal institutions, actors and processes of lawmaking.

• Students should be able to:
• demonstrate legal research, writing and IT skills;
• locate and use reported cases and statutes;
• to critically analyse socio-legal and doctrinal materials
• explore legal problems through critical enquiry, thoughtful reflection and the willingness to question 'taken for granted' assumptions;
• apply information in a structured argument drawing upon the inter-disciplinary methods of legal scholars: theoretical, historical, socio-legal and textual;
• apply the law of contract and understand and analyse its development;
• access legal materials, both in print and electronically, in the library and through specialist databases;
• to read, understand and analyse cases, statutes and academic articles.

• Key skills developed in this module include being able to communicate complex ideas and arguments in clear written form.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Lectures are used primarily to impart knowledge - and also to suggest approaches to evaluation and critical analysis;
• Tutorials will be used to develop and enhance students capacity for legal-problem solving in a particular factual situation, evaluative critical analysis and their appreciation of laws' linkage with broader fields of enquiry;
• Formative assignments are used to develop subject-specific and key skills.
• The examination tests the ability to focus on relevant legal issues and organise knowledge and argument appropriate to questions raised. The examination questions will provide the means for students to demonstrate the acquisition of subject knowledge and the development of their problem-solving skills.
• The essay also tests the ability to engage in legal research and IT skills, particularly (but not exclusively) in relation to locating and using cases and statutes.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment

One essay of about 1,500 words.