Second-year course descriptions
Evidence:This course will explore the rules of evidence and their rationale, including relevancy, hearsay, impeachment, cross-examination, opinions and experts, documents, and privileges. Criminal Procedure:This course will cover regulation of law enforcement conducl during the investigation of crimes, with special emphasis on constitutional and statutory limitations. Topics include search and seizure, confessions and incriminating statements, electronic surveillance, entrapment, identification procedures, and remedies for improper police conduct.
4)................................ : This course covers the general principles of federal constitutional law,
including government authority and its distribution under the constitution; the judicial function in constitutional cases; powers delegated to the national government and the reserved powers of the states in areas of federal authority; intergovernmental relations; rights, privileges, and immunities under the constitution; national citizenship; the contract clause; the federal constitution and the amendments thereto.
5)................................ : This course is designed to acquaint students with the nature of legal
research. Students will analyze judicial opinions; apply legal concepts and rules; and learn correct legal citation and use of correct precedent. Special attention is given to the mechanics of legal research, the techniques of writing memoranda, and briefs.
7 Choose the correct title for each course in the catalogue excerpt on page 10.
1 Criminal law / Crime law
2 Law of the constitution / Constitutional law
3 Contract law / Contracting law
4 Legal research and writing / Legal investigation and writing
5 Liability law / Tort law
8 Read the excerpt again and answer these questions.
1 Which course covers basic skills that students will need during their studies?
2 Which course deals with research and writing skills needed in professional life?
3 Which course teaches students how to cross-examine a witness?
9 Underline three words you do not know. Try to guess their meaning by looking
at surrounding words and analysing the words.
10 Which of the courses in the excerpt are/were you required to take in the law degree programme you are/were enrolled in?
Listening i: Law courses
Most universities now offer language courses for lawyers, and in some countries these courses are compulsory. Some courses in legal English focus on the study of Anglo-American legal systems and associated terminology. Others offer a more practical introduction to the language skills lawyers will need during their future careers.
You are going to hear a discussion between two law students, Heidi from Germany and Pavel from Russia. They are each spending a semester studying law in England and are discussing the English courses they were required to take as part of the law degree programmes in their respective countries.
11 4i 1.1 Listen to the discussion and tick (/) what each speaker says he/she did on his/her legal English course.
| Heidi's course | Pavel's course |
| (Speaker 1) | (Speaker 2) |
| □ | □ |
| □ | □ |
| □ | □ |
| □ | □ |
| □ | □ |
1 worked on writing skills for lawyers
2 practised legal research skills
3 learned about other legal systems
4 studied terminology
5 gave presentations
6 practised speaking about own legal system □ □
12 4c 1.1 Listen to the conversation again and then discuss with a partner which course (Heidi's or Pavel's) most resembles your experience of legal English so far.
Unit i A career in law
Language use: Comparative and superlative forms
13 The two law students in Listening 1, Heidi and Marc, compared the legal English
courses they took at their universities. Look at these sentences from the dialogue
(1-9) and match them with the rules regarding the use of comparative and superlative
forms (a-h). Some examples may match with more than one rule.
1 People here speak very quickly, which makes it harder to understand.
2 But now it's much easier- I can understand almost everything.
3 That's more difficult for me than understanding what people say.
4 Yes, I think writing's the hardest thing to do in English.
5 Our course was more practical - we worked on the language skills that lawyers need.
6 We didn't really work on speaking skills, though; it was more important to present the terminology.
7 That was definitely the most useful thing we did.
8 It sounds like your course was better than mine.
9 I don't know if it was better, but it was certainly more language-based and more skills-based.
a Adjectives with one syllable form their superlative by adding -est. b Adjectives with one syllable form their comparative by adding -er. c Short adjectives ending in -y form their comparative by removing -y and
adding -ier. d Multi-syllable adjectives form their comparative with more. e Compound adjectives form their comparative with more. f Multi-syllable adjectives form their superlative with most. g Some very frequent adjectives have irregular comparative forms. h Than is used to introduce the second element in a comparative structure.
14 Complete this excerpt from an introductory talk given in the first session of a legal
English course. Use the correct comparative or superlative form of the adjectives given.
You might be expecting to learn a lot of detail about Anglo-American legal systems and
their foundations, but our focus this semester will be 1)................................... (practical)
than theoretical. We will mainly be working on language skills, such as writing letters
or speaking with clients. I am convinced this is the 2).................................. (good) way
to prepare for using English for law. You may find this course 3)................................
(challenging) and 4)................................ (time-consuming) than you expected, but you
may also find it one of the 5)................................. (useful) courses you take at university,
as many students have told me in the past. To make it 6).................................. (easy) for
you to plan your time, I'll be handing out a list of the readings and the assignments you'll be working on this term.