Law (Senior Status) - LLB (Hons)

The module aims to provide students with: an understanding of the adversarial trial structure and its impact on the content of the law of evidence, particularly in the context of the criminal trial; an understanding of forensic reasoning skills; a familiarisation with the content of some of the key evidential rules; encouragement to identify and debate current issues within the law of evidence with confidence, including the importance of due process and how it relates to notions of truth and fact finding; and the ability to apply the legal rules and principles within a critical framework.

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Over the course of the late twentieth century the modern state was transformed in far-reaching ways. The deregulation and privatisation of national economies, the rise of risk governance, the proliferation of administrative agencies and the increasing the involvement of experts in public policy have all profoundly affected the practice of government. At the same time, states responded to global problems cutting across national boundaries (eg, in finance, security and the environment) by governing through transnational networks and global institutions far removed from conventional mechanisms of democratic and legal accountability. These changes have dramatically transformed the landscape of public law - broadly defined as 'the practices that sustain and regulate the activity of governing'.

This module helps students to navigate this shifting constitutional terrain and grapple with the key legal and political challenges it poses. In Public Law 1 students learned about the core principles of constitutional and administrative law, exploring issues like parliamentary sovereignty, the separation of powers, judicial review, human rights and devolution. In the Law of the European Union students were introduced to the principle of multi-level governance through which the modern state operates. Public Law 2 builds on these insights by analysing the complexity of contemporary governance in detail. The aim is to have students think critically about (i) the changing nature of the state, global governance and regulation; (ii) how globalisation is changing the ways public law problems are governed; (iii) the key challenges these shifts pose for the protection of rights and (iv) the different techniques and processes for holding states and powerful actors to account.

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This module will build on the knowledge that students will have acquired during Stage 1 (such as in LAWS5880 Public Law 1). This module will develop student learning by focusing on foundational legal aspects of EU law as well as rules governing selected substantive areas of EU law, also taking into account the relevance of these rules to the UK. The module convenor will set out specific areas of study in the relevant module guide.

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This module introduces the student to the jurisprudence of equity and trusts. Building on knowledge and understanding developed in LAWS3160/LAWS5316 Introduction to Property Law and LAWS5990 Land Law, but also LAWS6500 Law of Contract and private law more generally, the module examines equity's contributions to private law and jurisprudence. The module is designed to challenge the somewhat dull image of this area of law and to encourage a critical and imaginative understanding of the subject. Departing from conventional approaches, this module does not study equity merely in regards to its role as originator of the trust. Equity is instead acknowledged to be what it really is a vital component of the English legal system, a distinct legal tradition possessing its own principles and method of legal reasoning, and an original and continuing source of legal development in the sphere of remedies. The law of equity and trusts is contextualised within a historical and jurisprudential inquiry, providing a wider range of possible interpretations of its development and application. What then becomes central to the module's approach is the complex interrelation of law with ethical, political, economic and jurisprudential considerations, and of that between legal outcomes, pragmatic concerns and policy objectives.

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The focus of the module is private property in English land: title by registration; squatting; owner-occupation; leases; covenants and land development. It builds on the Foundations of Property module to develop an in-depth understanding of English land law, its conception of property and its politics and effects. And it gives experience in how to advise clients on land law problems – and on how to avoid problems for clients.

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This module will offer a one-week overview of Contract law doctrine by reviewing the essentials of contract law gained by students in Introduction to Contract and Tort and provide an overview of the lectures to follow.

Thereafter, students will spend the majority of the time on contract doctrine and problem-solving in contract law, comprised of doctrinal topics not covered in LAWS3150 Introduction to Contract and Tort e.g. breach of contract and remedies, contractual terms, misrepresentation, termination and frustration of contracts and policing bargaining behaviour.

The remainder of the module will focus on contract theory (e.g. freedom of contract, relational contract theory, contract and the vulnerable, contract and consumption). This section of the module will overlay the doctrine covered in the previous section with a basic theoretical framework, and ground students' understanding of critical essay writing in contract law. It will also build on discussion of the purposes of contract law in Introduction to Contract and Tort.

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This module builds on students' learning from other private law modules such as Introduction to Contract and Tort, Introduction to Property Law and the Law of Contract. A specific aim of this module is to develop students' interest and proficiency in the use of case law based legal arguments as a way of solving legal problems and/or determining liability. The module therefore continues the practice of using case classes to discuss a limited number of modern cases in depth. This in-depth focus on modern decided cases will enable students to

• become increasingly familiar with the idea that cases can be read in different ways;

• observe and analyse the idiosyncrasies of legal language and argument within judgments;

• improve crafting legal arguments in this module and beyond;

• identify some of the contested boundaries of modern tort law.

Whilst case law continues to be central to tortious liability, the module will also consider the role played by statutes in tortious liability. Examples may include the liability of

• occupiers of land towards persons harmed on their land,

• manufacturers towards consumers; and

• publishers towards the potentially defamed.

The module considers these and other topics after having explored tort law's most important tort in detail. Tort law's most important tort is the tort of negligence. Much of the module is devoted to a detailed exploration of the elements of and legal concepts related to that tort. The assessed coursework will be an extended problem question relating to the tort of negligence where students will be required to use their learning to formulate a variety of legal arguments and to predict the likely outcome.

Towards the end of the module, the law of tort(s) is placed in its contemporary context of the so-called "Compensation Culture". It considers whether the relationship between tort law and its context can explain its shape or contemporary debates about it. By reflecting on the doctrine studied earlier in the module and observing where the lines of liability are currently drawn, students will be asked to think about what this reveals about private rights and obligations, the balance between responsibility for harm and freedom of action, access to justice and different conceptions thereof. These broader topics, with consequences for law reform, will be explored in seminars and in exam essay questions.

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