Subjects:

Legal Manuals

Contents:

1. Preparation: a forensic skill

2. Introduction to legal research

3. Getting to know the lawyer's tools

4. Starting to research

5. Cold starting

6. Following through

7. Researching words and phrases

8. Using electronic research tools

9. Reading and interpreting a case

10. Legal sources for the practitioner

11. Practical legal research

12. Overview of a civil case

13. Anatomy of a criminal case

14. The fact management process

15. The C.A.P. approach in action

16. The civil brief

17. The criminal brief

18. Dealing with figures

19. IT use in case preparation and presentation

20. Self-assessment exercises

Appendix 1: Glossary of medical terms

Appendix 2: Wigmore analysis charts

Appendix 3: Completed chart for R v. Penny

Further reading

Thorough preparation is the vital first step to winning a case. Case Preparation provides students with practical advice on how to identify the relevant law and effectively manage the facts at their disposal in order to present a convincing argument.

Efficient legal research is an essential skill for the barrister. In this manual all the important aspects of good research are identified and explained so that the student can feel at ease with the tools and techniques they will use in professional life. The research section of the manual takes full account of the availability of electronic resources.

The skills needed to master the set of facts from which a legal action arises are fully explained using the systematic C.A.P. (Context, Analyse, Present) approach. This provides students with an efficient and reliable method for preparing watertight answers to legal problems. Realistic sets of papers are used to demonstrate this step-by-step approach, with reference to both civil and criminal cases. Further sets of papers are also provided for practising case preparation skills.