ABSTRACT
This chapter is designed to help students to develop a legal framework for their practice. In speaking of law-informed practice, the activity recognizes that it is not possible to have detailed knowledge of all the laws which are significant to social work practice, and that students need to be as aware of what they do not know as what they do. The activity aims to start a process which demystifies the law and legal processes. The 'Spirit and letter' activity has two main purposes. The first is to sensitize the student to the importance of the legal context of social work practice; the second is to dispel some of the mystique about the law offering clear, hard and fast rules. The teaching of law for social workers has come under considerable criticism, and added fuel to the fire which carried probation education and training out of social work.
