Module LAW1041: LEGAL SKILLS

Department: Law

LAW1041: LEGAL SKILLS

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

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; Law in practice; 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.
• An understanding of how law works in practice

• 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
• 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;
• The course will also include a guest speaker series, "Law in Practice", to provide insight into how law operates in the professional setting;
• 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 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. Students will have the option of answering a question on the core content of the course; or on the "Law in Practice" component.
• The ‘Law in Practice’ guest lecture series, linked with the Legal Skills course, will be held on a weekly basis and constitute additional lecture hours during full term. The details of the guest lecture series will be published separately.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

One essay of about 1,500 words.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University