ABSTRACT
It is an unfortunate consequence of the way academic legal education is conducted in this country that students gain little, if any, knowledge of the law in practice. The emphasis on substantive legal doctrine, and on the application of legal principles to hypothetical fact situations, means that their understanding of what law is will often be limited to an understanding of the
decisions and reasoning of the appellate courts. Add to this the fact that evidence and procedure (if they are taught at all) are not required for the purposes of a qualifying Law degree,3 and we are left with a situation where law students’ knowledge of the process of adjudication is at best partial and fragmented, and at worst non-existent. The same is true, though for different reasons, of the general public’s understanding. Unless a person has undertaken jury service, or has been involved in litigation, knowledge of the law is typically limited to the making of wills, the conveyance of property, the signing of leases, the purchase of goods and services, or the payment of parking fines. Such routine and bureaucratic engagement with the law provides little insight into the tensions, complexities and passions that are often manifest in the courtroom, and such insight as is gained about the nature of a trial frequently comes not from dispassionate reporting but either from fiction, drama or sensationalised media accounts.
