Legal Systems & Skills

Legal Systems & Skills provides students with a practical guide to all the essential knowledge and skills they will need for their law degree and beyond. Divided into three core areas, it forms a foundation for legal studies and for graduate employment.

Essential Legal Systems: Part I delivers a focused and practical guide to the purpose and application of law. Contemporary and holistic in approach, it covers all the essential topics in legal systems, considering social, moral, ethical, and jurisprudential perspectives. Taking learning further, it helps students to critically evaluate legal systems and their implications for individuals, businesses, and commerce.

Essential Legal Skills: Part II demonstrates step-by-step approaches to acquiring and honing the skills needed for the academic study of law and professional practice. Numerous visual aids and learning features help students to become adept researchers, nimble problem-solvers, dexterous writers, and competent communicators. They will acquire the tools they need to analyse, evaluate, and apply the law, and to thrive in their future careers.

Essential Employability and Commercial Awareness: Part III helps students to see how their knowledge and skills can be practically applied, in the legal world or outside of it. Students are encouraged to reflect on and actively improve their commercial awareness through case studies, practice interview questions, and activities, giving them the skills to thrive in the world of work. Targeted coverage of employability, CV development, and transferrable skills helps students to approach their future careers with confidence and communicate their own competencies effectively.

This book is the essential contemporary toolkit for savvy law students, enabling them to:

Learn how law works;
Develop the essential skills; and
Apply them to succeed.

Online Resource Centre
This text is accompanied by an Online Resource Centre offering a range of stimulating resources, including:
Self-test questions
The authors' guidance on the thought-provoking questions in the book
A library of web links for students
Regular updates in the law

Scott Slorach, Director of Teaching & Learning, York Law School, University of York,Judith Embley,Associate Professor, University of Law,Peter Goodchild, Senior Lecturer, University of Law,Catherine Shephard,Senior Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University

Scott Slorach is the Director of Teaching & Learning at York Law School at the University of York. He holds Visiting Professorial roles at the University of Strathclyde and the Singapore Institute of Legal Education. He has over twenty years' experience in design and delivery of undergraduate, postgraduate and professional legal education programmes. A qualified solicitor with City experience, he was author ofCorporate Finance (OUP) and is currently co-author of Business Law (OUP).


Judith Embley is Associate Professor at the University of Law. She qualified as a solicitor in 1980, practising in a Lincoln's Inn firm and began teaching law in 1999 as a Visiting Lecturer at Bellerby's College and then Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. She joined the University of Law in 2001, where she has taught contract, commercial and business financial law. She is now a course developer and is joint author ofCommercial and Intellectual Property Law and Practice, one of the University of Law's Legal Practice Guides.

Peter Goodchild is an Associate Professor at the University of Law. He read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at St. Anne's College, Oxford, then attended the University of Law and qualified as a solicitor in 1997, into commercial practice. He joined the University of Law in 2000, where he has taught the English legal system, contract, tort, commercial, and business structures law. In addition to over ten years of teaching experience, he has wide experience of designing programmes and is a co-author of texts on commercial law, IP law and the English legal system.


Catherine Shephard is Senior Lecturer, Programme Director of Legal Practice Management and Subject Leader of corporate practice and practical legal research at Manchester Metropolitan University. She read law at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, practised as a solicitor in corporate finance and has over ten years' experience of designing, delivering and assessing a wide range of skills, law and management programmes to solicitors in practice and to students at Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Law. Catherine has a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education with distinction.