LLAW5224 Legal Research and Advocacy Course Descriptor

Course Overview

Providing a chance to gain professional communications skills, Legal Research and Advocacy allows students to put the substantive legal doctrines they have studied into simulated practice as litigators. Students will experience a simulated advocacy exercise whereby students present a case for whichever partly they are representing before a court of appellate jurisdiction.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage students in their studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

Directed study

4-12 scheduled hours, the exact number varying according to the balance of 1:1s, 2:1s, or small groups. The plan will be confirmed by the start of the course, taking into account student numbers and the proposed topics, readings, and specific tasks.

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups. 

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions, office hours, and/or the VLE.

Summative Assessments

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours).

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

John Snape and Gary Watt, How to Moot: a student guide to Mooting, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press

Jeffrey Hill, A practical guide to mooting, 1st edition, Palgrave Macmillan

Sarah L Cooper and Scarlett McCardle, Preparing to Moot: a step by step guide, 1st edition, Routledge

Derek Halbert and Hayley Whitaker, Advocacy and Public Speaking: A student’s guide, 1st edition, Chester University Press

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below are used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

Topics for moots will be drawn from suitable, accessible areas.