Legal Skills

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Description
It's been eight years since we sat down with the metaphorical blank piece of paper—which was, in actual fact, two blank Word documents (one each)—to write Legal Skills. It was, oddly, a project that sort of happened by accident: a story with which we will bore you some other time. Anyway, we certainly never envisaged that we would, one day, sit down to write the preface to the fifth edition. At least we didn't have to start with two blank Word documents, but instead, the editable version of the fourth edition and an instruction to Track Changes'.1 This has illustrated just how much the book has evolved and changed since the first edition published in 2007.2 Much of this has, of course, resulted from amendments to the law, recognition of the ever-changing needs of students, and the way in which legal research is done in practice (with an inevitable shift towards online research and away from the traditional law libraries—certainly for 'mainstream' materials). However, the major¬ity of enhancements have been direct responses to feedback from students and fellow lecturers together with the anonymous reviewers for each edition who always provide such constructive and useful feedback. As such, we would like to thank everyone who has commented on the first four editions—in whatever way. We hope that the changes that we have made for this new edition both reflect your comments and make the book better as a result. We really do rely on your thoughts and observations to keep the book useful and relevant, so do please contact us if you think that there are particular parts that are superfluous, missing, not to your liking, unclear, or (even) wrong. You can email us at hello@finchandfafinski.com, visit our website at www.finchandfafinski.com, or tweet at @FinchFafinski. Particular thanks for this edition to Jenna Jiggens, Law Librarian at St Mary's University College Twickenham for getting in touch and ultimately reviewing the bits con¬cerning law librarians and why students really should befriend theirs as an often-untapped source of splendid information and advice, and to someone we only actually know by their Twitter handle of @marginview who pointed out quite a few points in the fourth edition which benefitted from a bit of clarification this time around. Whoever you are, well spotted and thanks for getting in touch.
New to this Edition
• A new introductory chapter on what studying law is all about and getting sites.
• Commentary on the European Union (Withdrawal Act 2017 and Wear.
• Explanation of the different types of Convention right absolute, limited, and qualified.
• Explanation of the impact of Brexit on statutory interpretation and judicial precedent.
• A completed reworked chapter on study skills that places greater emphasis on developing a
  reflective approach to skills development and which includes new material on building  good study
  habits, group  working, and strategies for strengthening performance
• Additional material on reasons to do a dissertation and choosing a topic, include how to get started
   on a  dissertation as it is common for students to find themselves rather direction less at the start of
    the dissertation.
• The section on different sources of literature has been expanded and is supplemented in new
    section managing literature.
• Tips on working, effectively and productively with a supervisor including managing problems.
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Contents
Part I : Getting Started : Source of Law 
1 : Getting Started
2 : Legislation
3 : Finding legislation
4 : Using legislation
5 : Case law
6 : Finding cases
7 : Using cases
8 : Books, journals, and official publications
9 : Finding books, journals, and official publications
10 : Study skills
11 : Writing skills
12 : Legal reasoning
13 : Referencing and avoiding plagiarism
14 : Essay writing
15 : Dissertations
16 : Answering problem questions
17 : Revision and examination skills
18 : Presentation skills
19 : Mooting skills
20 : Negotiation skills
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