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Skills for Law Students is an innovative online resource which covers all of the skills that law students need to understand and develop during the course of their law degree. It includes clear, practical advice on how to develop key skills as well as over 170 interactive activities to test progress and to help put the theory into practice. |
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About this site From the Publisher Skills for Law Students is an innovative online resource which covers all of the skills that law students need to understand and develop during the course of their law degree. It includes clear, practical advice on how to develop key skills as well as over 170 interactive activities to test progress and to help put the theory into practice.
Why not get started with activity 1: the 'skills audit' in the Introduction to test how much you already know about law and how law affects our day-to-day lives? From the Authors It would be difficult for us to present this new online resource and accompanying textbook as the culmination of a long planned endeavour. It is more the result of a series of fortuitous encounters, serendipitous conversations and shared concerns. Our drivers are twofold; first, a belief that the diversity of student experience prior to entering higher education means that lecturers cannot, if indeed they ever could, take what students know for granted, and second, the realisation that transformations in technology mean that the textbook, if it is to remain a useful tool for the student, must evolve. It needs to respond to the immediate needs of the students in a useful and purposeful manner. We have chosen to focus on legal skills in part because they provide an opportunity for us to test our ideas and to see what can be achieved, and in part because we are all becoming so much more aware of the underpinning role of skills in ensuring academic and vocational success. However we do think our approach could be transferred to textbooks covering substantive law areas, and we look forward to watching new projects emerge. However innovative our writing task has been, we would still like to take this opportunity to deliver traditional courtesies. This resource would not have been possible without the support of our colleagues and students at Kent Law School. They have been enthusiastic and generous. Particular thanks go to Nick Jackson and Rosemary Hunter for agreeing to be filmed, and to Alan Thomson and John Wightman whose shared experience and wisdom have ensured that teaching, learning and students remain as important as research in our law school agenda. Our students gave up weekends in the summer to participate in the project and we are grateful and wish them all the best in their future careers. Many of our friends in the legal profession gave up their time too. We know how busy they are and appreciate their involvement. We think their perspective is particularly valuable for students beginning their legal education. There is one person without whom this book would not have happened. Sarah Viner has been an extraordinary editor; she has enthused, organised, and cajoled us to ensure that we have given the best we could to this project. She has worked so hard to help us achieve our ambitions and we are very very grateful. We would also like to thank each other. It's been a real joy working as a team, learning from each other, and sharing experiences which between us cover a huge range of legal education. Helen would like to thank her family. Richard and Rowan have been more interested in this project than any other she has been involved in, and their observations and contributions have been invaluable. She would like to thank Hugh Brayne and Stephen Cottle for their patience when their projects have been delayed because the project took more time than planned. She would also like to thank two particularly gifted teachers of law, Leslie Sheinman and Mic Jeeves who taught her to take legal education seriously and whose ideas and enthusiasms she has drawn on, perhaps more than she has been aware, throughout the resource. Sarah is indebted to her colleagues in the law librarian profession who have supported her over the years, in particular Sue Pettit, Cathie Jackson and Steven Whittle, who know how much she owes them, and Guy Holborn, whose erudite and witty book on legal skills is always at her right hand. Her long association with Kent Law School, and Nick Jackson in particular, has been inspirational, and she would also like to extend thanks to all the law and technology people at Warwick University. Finally, her part of this enterprise is dedicated to her twin grand daughters, Agnes and Molly, who arrived just in time to distract her from the work in hand, and who are therefore totally responsible for any deficiencies. Kirsty has many people to thank, some of whom have already been mentioned, but it can be added that their teaching while she was at Kent inspired her to remain in academia and generated her passion for learning law. Erika Rackley and Karen Devine also deserve thanks for their input and the answers they gave to various questions as this project progressed. And, last but not least, thanks go to Mike Walters, who ended up holding the baby for many weekends and much of the summer. This book is dedicated to Francis, who was conceived around the same time as the idea for this project and born during the writing of it. Finally - one further significant tradition. Despite all the help we have received, we know that mistakes may remain. We take full responsibility, we would be grateful if you could draw them to our attention, and we apologise if they confuse. Despite them, we hope you enjoy this resource and it provides you with a sound foundation for a stimulating legal education. Acknowledgements Grateful acknowledgement is made to all the authors and publishers of copyright material that appears in this online resource and accompanying textbook, and in particular to the following for permission to reprint material from the sources indicated:
Crown copyright material is reproduced under Class Licence Number C01P0000148 with the permission of OPSI and the Queen's Printer for Scotland Professor Dame Hazel Genn: PowerPoint slides written to accompany the presentation 'Mediation in England' Guardian News & Media Ltd: article 'Privy Council overrules Lords to put judgment back on track: Ruling reverses decision on provocation: Lawyer says murder move is retrograde step', The Guardian, 30 January 2006, copyright © Guardian News & Media Ltd 2006 Tom Holmes: essay entitled 'The emergence of proportionality in judicial review has led to greater protection of human rights. However, it has also distorted the institutional balance between the judiciary, administration and Parliament.' Oxford University Press: extract f rom M Lunney and K Oliphant, Tort Law Text and Materials (Oxford University Press, 2007) Oxford University Press and the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford: Oxford Journal of Legal Studies front cover Richard Alcock: example student essay on the use of statutory interpretation in Stevenson v Rogers Routledge: material adapted from A Franklyn-Stokes and S. E. Newstead, 'Undergraduate Cheating: Who Does What and Why' (1995), 20 (2) Studies in Higher Education 159 Sage Publications Ltd and the author: Erika Rackley, 'Difference in the House of Lords' (2006), 15 (2) Social and Legal Studies 163, copyright © Sage Publications Ltd 2006 The University of Michigan Press: exercise adapted from J. M. Swales and C. B. Feak, Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills (The University of Michigan Press, 2004) The University of Kent Unit for Enhancement of Learning and Teaching for advice on plagiarism. www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/ai. Each chapter of this resource was reviewed prior to publication by a number of academics and e-learning co-ordinators, and we would particularly like to thank the following people for their constructive feedback:
Simon Askey, University of London Sheena Banks, University of Sheffield Vanessa Bettinson, De Montfort University Jo Boylan-Kemp, Nottingham Trent University Deveral Capps, University of Northumbria Sandra Clarke, University of Greenwich Karen Counsell, University of Glamorgan Dennis Dowding, Bournemouth University Sam Halliday, University of Liverpool Nicola Isaacs, University of Plymouth Lesley Lomax, Sheffi eld Hallam University Stewart Motha, University of Kent Janette Porteous, University of Lincoln Sue Prince, University of Exeter Tony Wragg, University of Derby Lucy Yeatman, University of Greenwich
Tamsin Arthur Poonam Bhari Jill Evans Hayley Gow Tom Holmes Rosemary Hunter Nick Jackson Ed Kirton-Darling Stephanie Le Couteur Viv Matthews Sarah McCracken Berenice Mulvanny Mark Pritchard Jon Viner Pete Walters Patrick Whetter Bianca Wu Credits For Credits click here |
