Module outline:
The module offers students the opportunity to gain academic credit through critical reflection of law in practice. Students will experience a practice-based role in a legal environment that is agreed between the student and the module director. Placements could range from working within the local council or local CAB office to working in a law firm or a company's legal department. The module supports the development of practical, intellectual and inter-personal skills, facilitates understanding of the cultural, ethical and employment context of law, and integrates learning from work and academic study.
The aims of the module are:
To teach law through its application and practice and through critical reflection on those processes;
To increase the employability of students by developing and enhancing their transferrable and subject-specific knowledge and skills;
To increase the employability of students by developing and enhancing skills of oral and written communication for specific audiences (including an oral presentation), professionalism, confidentiality, and problem solving in a day-to-day working environment;
To develop in students a critical understanding of ethical issues involved in legal work;
To encourage better understanding of personal and professional development planning, professional ethics and reflective learning;
To introduce students to key skills in client interviewing and alternative dispute resolution;
To afford students the opportunity to gain credit for their work placement and to enrich their legal understanding from undertaking work based learning in an appropriate environment.
Learning Outcomes:
The student will acquire, develop and apply knowledge and skills relating to:
The practical application of the law
Professional communication
Module Description
The module deals with banking regulation and supervision, and the bank – customer relationship. The first part introduces banks as important economic and social institutions and their regulation in a domestic, EU, and global context. The second part focuses on some key services commonly provided by banks in the course of the bank – customer relationship and analyses relevant legal issues such as contractual fairness, the bank's duty of confidentiality, and the potential for transactional and advisory liability. The module adopts a dynamic approach that balances theoretical perspectives, legal policy and the principles contained in statutes, cases and commercial custom. It does not assume any prior knowledge of banking practice, but it does expect that students will quickly develop a keen interest in financial institutions and markets.
Aims and Objectives
The module seeks to:
- Introduce banks, banking law and the business of banking;
-Equip students with detailed knowledge about the institutions involved in banking regulation and supervision in the United Kingdom and the European Union;
-Introduce the key banking transactions and their legal implications;
-Enable students to appreciate the political, social and economic forces underlying the dynamism and evolution of the financial industry and attempts to regulate the resulting processes and supervise the relevant institutions; and
-Equip students with the analytical tools for analysing domestic banking transactions and applying the relevant law to scenarios drawn from real-life situations.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module students will be able to:
- Review, consolidate and extend their understanding of the legal regulation and supervision of the UK and EU banking industry and the bank-customer relationship in the UK;
- Explain in a systematic and detailed manner the structure and operations of the institutions involved in banking regulation and supervision in the UK and the links with banking regulation and supervision in the EU;
- Assess the success of banking reforms that have taken place both at the domestic and the EU level;
- Analyse key banking transactions and their legal implications and apply the law to scenarios concerning such transactions;
- Critically evaluate arguments, legal issues and practical situations, and frame appropriate solutions to the main issues arising in the banking services sector; and,
- Communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions concerning banking regulation and the banker customer relationship to both specialist and non-specialist audiences
Outline
The aim of the module is to present a clear picture of the process and procedure involved in the presentation of evidence in trials in England and Wales. In achieving this aim, the module examines the process of gathering evidence, the admissibility of such evidence and the ability to use such evidence in reaching decisions, primarily within the criminal justice systems but also, on occasions, in civil hearings. The module is a very practical one; examining why the law of evidence has evolved as it has. Questions include:
Can previous criminal convictions of either the defendant or a witness be presented to the court?
Can the spouse of a defendant be compelled to give evidence against his/her accused spouse?
What is the relevancy of purely circumstantial evidence?
How are vulnerable witnesses, such as rape complainants or child victims protected by the court system?
Can an illegally obtained confession be used in court?
Can an illegally obtained murder weapon be evidence in court?
What is the best way to represent your accused client when his/her coaccused throws all the blame onto him/her?
The module builds upon knowledge already gained in a number of other substantive law modules, in particular the law of torts and criminal law, and complements such modules as civil liberties, criminology and corporate crime. Many wouldbe lawyers will find the module very useful for practice, although it has a very strong bias towards the criminal evidence rules it also indicates the more simplified civil law rules.
Syllabus
Relevance and Admissibility; Burden of Proof
Witnesses: Competence and Compellability
Witness Evidence and Examination
Identification Evidence
Character Evidence
Evidence of a Complainant in a Sexual Offence Case
Bad Character of the Defendant
Hearsay inc. Confessions; Silence and defendant's lies
Objectives of the Module
To understand the historical rules governing the admission of evidence in order to be able to reason what further changes are needed to the law.
To reason why we have rules of evidence and assess the efficacy of the current rules for achieving justice and a fair trial.
Know the most important cases and statutes in the area and understand their contribution to the subject.
Learn and understand how the rules and procedures fit together in order to be able to apply them in practice.
This module provides an opportunity for a final year student to undertake a substantial piece of legal research on a topic of his or her choice. Students will be working under the supervision of a member of the School of Law staff. The module is assessed on the basis of 3 elements: a written project project, a reflective statement, and an oral presentation.
The aims of the module are:
- To enable the student to pursue a research project on a legally related topic of interest;
- To encourage independent research;
- To encourage students to plan and manage their own projects;
- To encourage communication of ideas through a medium appropriate to a given project.
This 15-credit Spring term module is assessed on the basis of two pieces of written work (i.e. (1) a project, and (2) a reflective statement) and (3) an oral presentation.
Jurisprudence is a module that enables you to think in-depth about how law works and the impact it has on the society around us. For example: How is law different to other rules and principles? Should law reflect moral opinion, and if so, how do we decide what is moral? Can judges really be objective when they make decisions? How do we judge if law is making society fairer?
The module covers many key theoretical approaches to understanding what law is and how it functions. In doing so, we will look at the relationship (and conflicts) between law and politics, markets, and matters of social justice. You will be asked to think for yourself about these issues, and reflect on which perspectives provide us with the most accurate, and the most useful, ways of thinking about law.
This 15 credit module, taught in the autumn term, aims to build upon the foundations of human rights law which are introduced in LW103 Foundations of Public Law and give students a deeper understanding of the framework within which human rights are protected in the United Kingdom.
The module commences with consideration of the rights protected by the law of the UK. This is followed by a detailed examination of the Human Rights Act 1998, focussing in particular on sections 2, 3, 4 and 6; and of the protection of human rights at common law. We then look at the role of the European Court of Human Rights and the interaction between national and supranational institutions in this area, before taking a comparative perspective. Finally, the module will consider the future of human rights protection and the potential for reform in this area.
Companies are by far the most used vehicle for doing business and an understanding of the rules that govern them is essential for anyone aiming at a career in commerce and industry. The module will examine the nature of a company, its constitution and institutional setting, corporate management issues, its incorporation and share capital, the concept of separate legal personality, the roles of the stakeholders in a company as well as the duties of directors and the protection of shareholders. A sound understanding will help students to fully understand the relevant principles and doctrines. The analysis of corporate governance issues will enable students to understand the significance of the relevant debates while the analysis of the relevant legislative framework on insolvency and takeovers along with the relevant case studies on lifting the corporate veil and corporate scandals will provide a thorough examination of the field in question.
Aims and Objectives
The objectives of the module are:
* To provide students with the necessary foundations of knowledge so that the Learning Outcomes listed below are achieved
* To provide students with the necessary foundations to comprehend the wide range of issues covered in the course of this module as well as the range of other modules in the relevant field.
* To encourage the development of students skills in legal reasoning and analysis through study of statutes, case law and regulatory practice relating to Company Law
* To encourage students to engage with Company Law beyond the confines of the module, both academically and in its broader social, political and economic context.