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3 LEGAL EDUCATION AND THE INTRODUCTION OF SKILLS OF ARGUMENT At the academic stage of education the standard framework around which teaching takes place is that of legal analysis. Legal education is orientated towards the case method: how cases in courts are described and analysed. The student’s skill in understanding cases, how they have been argued and how the law has been applied, is tested by asking the student to solve a hypothetical problem. The student is given the hypothetical facts. Often students are asked to present advice for one fictional party to a case. The student goes to the library (virtual or real) and searches in books and journals, and the law reports to find similar, analogous cases, noting how these have been decided and why Then that student infers how the hypothetical case he or she has to argue will be decided, basing their inferences on the way applicable legal rules were applied in real cases. The legal analysis that students are trained to do, of course, involves basic analysis of the facts of the case. Which are the material facts? How can the facts as given be organised to make it clear that earlier cases apply? In the standard university problem question (see Chapter 8), the facts do not need to be ascertained, they are given as a neat logically ordered story. In real life, these stories are messier, the relevant facts more difficult to extract, and the doubts and solutions are not so clear. At the vocational stage of legal training, the student is taught to engage in factual analysis and this provides the framework for the course. The student is also taught how to structure, organise and analyse a large amount of what we could call ‘raw data’. They are taught to draw out the probable story from clients, the inferences in the data and see how available evidence can support the argument on the case to be proved. Evidence is correlated to the relevant facts, the facts in issue (eg, that Anna stole a book). The legal principles are assumed. Indeed this aspect of legal education reverses the process noted above in university education of drawing out legal analysis. The legal principles are for the present at least, not in issue, but a given. Theft is against the law. The test of development for the student is to see how skilled they are in deciding whether the factual data that has been made available can be put into a structure that makes it possible to construct a viable argument. An argument that proves Anna is guilty of theft, for example, because enough evidence exists to prove the elements of the unlawful act according to the relevant standard of proof. In reality the good lawyer needs to be able to engage in competent legal analysis and factual analysis. Whilst the difference between the two is important the rigid demarcation between the two for the purpose of the academic/vocational divide is unnecessary and at the early stages of acquiring a legal education highly problematic. This demarcation is beginning to break down as the value of legal skills at the academic stage of training is being recognised in UK law schools. Teaching legal analysis alongside factual analysis, and then subjecting the outcomes of both processes to critical analysis, gives a more holistic approach to the theoretical and the practical study of law. In addition, legal education does not only address factual analysis and legal analysis; it critically addresses macro issues relating to the law as an institution, interrogating the development of substantive law, personnel, methods of reform, underpinning ideologies and prevailing attitudes towards legal philosophy.
DOI link for 3 LEGAL EDUCATION AND THE INTRODUCTION OF SKILLS OF ARGUMENT At the academic stage of education the standard framework around which teaching takes place is that of legal analysis. Legal education is orientated towards the case method: how cases in courts are described and analysed. The student’s skill in understanding cases, how they have been argued and how the law has been applied, is tested by asking the student to solve a hypothetical problem. The student is given the hypothetical facts. Often students are asked to present advice for one fictional party to a case. The student goes to the library (virtual or real) and searches in books and journals, and the law reports to find similar, analogous cases, noting how these have been decided and why Then that student infers how the hypothetical case he or she has to argue will be decided, basing their inferences on the way applicable legal rules were applied in real cases. The legal analysis that students are trained to do, of course, involves basic analysis of the facts of the case. Which are the material facts? How can the facts as given be organised to make it clear that earlier cases apply? In the standard university problem question (see Chapter 8), the facts do not need to be ascertained, they are given as a neat logically ordered story. In real life, these stories are messier, the relevant facts more difficult to extract, and the doubts and solutions are not so clear. At the vocational stage of legal training, the student is taught to engage in factual analysis and this provides the framework for the course. The student is also taught how to structure, organise and analyse a large amount of what we could call ‘raw data’. They are taught to draw out the probable story from clients, the inferences in the data and see how available evidence can support the argument on the case to be proved. Evidence is correlated to the relevant facts, the facts in issue (eg, that Anna stole a book). The legal principles are assumed. Indeed this aspect of legal education reverses the process noted above in university education of drawing out legal analysis. The legal principles are for the present at least, not in issue, but a given. Theft is against the law. The test of development for the student is to see how skilled they are in deciding whether the factual data that has been made available can be put into a structure that makes it possible to construct a viable argument. An argument that proves Anna is guilty of theft, for example, because enough evidence exists to prove the elements of the unlawful act according to the relevant standard of proof. In reality the good lawyer needs to be able to engage in competent legal analysis and factual analysis. Whilst the difference between the two is important the rigid demarcation between the two for the purpose of the academic/vocational divide is unnecessary and at the early stages of acquiring a legal education highly problematic. This demarcation is beginning to break down as the value of legal skills at the academic stage of training is being recognised in UK law schools. Teaching legal analysis alongside factual analysis, and then subjecting the outcomes of both processes to critical analysis, gives a more holistic approach to the theoretical and the practical study of law. In addition, legal education does not only address factual analysis and legal analysis; it critically addresses macro issues relating to the law as an institution, interrogating the development of substantive law, personnel, methods of reform, underpinning ideologies and prevailing attitudes towards legal philosophy.
3 LEGAL EDUCATION AND THE INTRODUCTION OF SKILLS OF ARGUMENT At the academic stage of education the standard framework around which teaching takes place is that of legal analysis. Legal education is orientated towards the case method: how cases in courts are described and analysed. The student’s skill in understanding cases, how they have been argued and how the law has been applied, is tested by asking the student to solve a hypothetical problem. The student is given the hypothetical facts. Often students are asked to present advice for one fictional party to a case. The student goes to the library (virtual or real) and searches in books and journals, and the law reports to find similar, analogous cases, noting how these have been decided and why Then that student infers how the hypothetical case he or she has to argue will be decided, basing their inferences on the way applicable legal rules were applied in real cases. The legal analysis that students are trained to do, of course, involves basic analysis of the facts of the case. Which are the material facts? How can the facts as given be organised to make it clear that earlier cases apply? In the standard university problem question (see Chapter 8), the facts do not need to be ascertained, they are given as a neat logically ordered story. In real life, these stories are messier, the relevant facts more difficult to extract, and the doubts and solutions are not so clear. At the vocational stage of legal training, the student is taught to engage in factual analysis and this provides the framework for the course. The student is also taught how to structure, organise and analyse a large amount of what we could call ‘raw data’. They are taught to draw out the probable story from clients, the inferences in the data and see how available evidence can support the argument on the case to be proved. Evidence is correlated to the relevant facts, the facts in issue (eg, that Anna stole a book). The legal principles are assumed. Indeed this aspect of legal education reverses the process noted above in university education of drawing out legal analysis. The legal principles are for the present at least, not in issue, but a given. Theft is against the law. The test of development for the student is to see how skilled they are in deciding whether the factual data that has been made available can be put into a structure that makes it possible to construct a viable argument. An argument that proves Anna is guilty of theft, for example, because enough evidence exists to prove the elements of the unlawful act according to the relevant standard of proof. In reality the good lawyer needs to be able to engage in competent legal analysis and factual analysis. Whilst the difference between the two is important the rigid demarcation between the two for the purpose of the academic/vocational divide is unnecessary and at the early stages of acquiring a legal education highly problematic. This demarcation is beginning to break down as the value of legal skills at the academic stage of training is being recognised in UK law schools. Teaching legal analysis alongside factual analysis, and then subjecting the outcomes of both processes to critical analysis, gives a more holistic approach to the theoretical and the practical study of law. In addition, legal education does not only address factual analysis and legal analysis; it critically addresses macro issues relating to the law as an institution, interrogating the development of substantive law, personnel, methods of reform, underpinning ideologies and prevailing attitudes towards legal philosophy.
ABSTRACT
At the academic stage of education the standard framework around which teaching takes place is that of legal analysis. Legal education is orientated towards the case method: how cases in courts are described and analysed. The student’s skill in understanding cases, how they have been argued and how the law has been applied, is tested by asking the student to solve a hypothetical problem. The student is given the hypothetical facts. Often students are asked to present advice for one fictional party to a case. The student goes to the library (virtual or real) and searches in books and journals, and the law reports to find similar, analogous cases, noting how these have been decided and why Then that student infers how the hypothetical case he or she has to argue will be decided, basing their inferences on the way applicable legal rules were applied in real cases. The legal analysis that students are trained to do, of course, involves basic analysis of the facts of the case. Which are the material facts? How can the facts as given be organised to make it clear that earlier cases apply? In the standard university problem question (see Chapter 8), the facts do not need to be ascertained, they are given as a neat logically ordered story. In real life, these stories are messier, the relevant facts more difficult to extract, and the doubts and solutions are not so clear.
