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Lawyers and their Clients

  • Module code: LL5307
  • Year: 2018/9
  • Level: 5
  • Credits: 30
  • Pre-requisites: None
  • Co-requisites: None

Summary

This module will develop the range of professional skills needed by a solicitor in dealing with a client, both in writing and face-to-face. These include general interpersonal skills, ethical and professional standards, research and drafting skills and an ability to advise a client accurately and competently on both legal and non-legal matters. The module will challenge your understanding of some core areas of law and require you to synthesise this knowledge with related specialised topics. It will develop in you an ability to think on your feet, to solve problems, to carry out research and to deliver accurate legal advice under pressure.

Aims

  • To enable students to develop the professional skills which are needed by a solicitor in dealing with a client, both in writing and face to face
  • To place the development of practical skills within the context of substantive legal and ethical issues
  • To provide a context in which the students can develop their ability to think on their feet and to deliver accurate legal advice under pressure

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

  • Demonstrate an ability to deal professionally with a range of different clients who have challenging legal problems
  • Demonstrate a critical understanding of the underlying dynamics involved in dealing with people who are in need of legal advice
  • Demonstrate an ability to think on their feet and to deliver accurate legal advice under pressure
  • Demonstrate an ability to critically evaluate their own performance within the wider context of an unfolding dynamic
  • Demonstrate an ability to carry out research, both legal and non-legal, on a range of specialised areas

Curriculum content

  • The practical skills involved in conducting an interview with a client in a professional and ethical manner
  • The professional ethics and codes of conduct, with a special emphasis on those of a practising lawyer
  • A range of areas of law commonly encountered by a high street solicitor, including housing, consumer protection, health and safety, police procedures, legal aid and access to justice
  • A range of substantive legal issues which would be determined by the specific client roles generated each year

Teaching and learning strategy

The teaching will be delivered by a series of two-hour workshops which will include a substantial amount of role play. These will be supplemented by weekly one-hour feedback/feedforward sessions. The students will be required to process information and to plan the interviews from the point of view of both solicitors and clients. They will evaluate their own performance and feedback to the other students. There will also be sessions in which the underlying dynamics are explored and discussed.

Due to the experiential nature of the learning on this degree, and the importance of professional development enabling students to develop practical skills, learn from and interact with others, attendance is compulsory. Any students not attending a minimum of 80% of their timetabled sessions will be at risk of academic failure or termination from the course.

Breakdown of Teaching and Learning Hours

Definitive UNISTATS Category Indicative Description Hours
Scheduled learning and teaching 22 two-hour workshops 22 one-hour feedback/feedforward sessions 66
Guided independent study Reading the material and preparing for the workshop tasks and assessments 234
Total (number of credits x 10) 300

Assessment strategy

There will be peer formative assessment taking place throughout the module, with each role play. There will then be a formal formative assessment mid-way through the first teaching block, based around a videoed first appointment with a client, including the production of any relevant paperwork such as a client care letter. The summative assessments will take place in the second teaching block and will be based on the second interview with a client, thereby creating the opportunity for the students to have done some research on the client's issues. In this way, the dynamic shifts from simply extracting information to delivering informed legal advice. Since the client is played by a member of staff, this amounts to a rigorous testing of the students' understanding of the law and of its relevance to this client.

There will be a summative assessment interview midway through the second teaching block with an emphasis on the interpersonal skills involved in delivering perhaps difficult advice to a difficult client. This interview counts for 30% of the module assessment. At the end of the module there will then be a second assessed interview which will be combined with the submission of an assessment bundle so as to generate the remaining 70% of the module assessment. Some elements of the paperwork of this bundle will have been generated by the module teaching sessions throughout the year and some will be specific to the client at the heart of the second assessment interview. The bundle will include a reflective and critical evaluation of specific aspects of the module and how they relate to the core teaching in other modules. As such, the overall assessment bundle, including the second interview, will be synoptic in nature, reinforcing the coherence of the law degrees.

Mapping of Learning Outcomes to Assessment Strategy (Indicative)

Learning Outcome Assessment Strategy
1) Demonstrate an ability to deal professionally with a range of different clients, who have challenging legal problems Formative, summative: workshops and both coursework assessments
2) Demonstrate a critical understanding of the underlying dynamics involved in dealing with people who are in need of legal advice Formative, summative: workshops and both coursework assessments
3) Demonstrate an ability to think on their feet and to deliver accurate legal advice under pressure Formative, summative: workshops and both coursework assessments
4) Demonstrate an ability to critically evaluate their own performance within the wider context of an unfolding dynamic Formative, summative: workshops and second coursework assessment
5) Demonstrate an ability to carry out research, both legal and non-legal, on a range of specialised areas Formative, summative: workshops and both coursework assessments

Elements of Assessment

Description of Assessment Definitive UNISTATS Categories Percentage
Videoed client interview Practical exam 30%
Coursework bundle, including videoed element Coursework 70%
Total (to equal 100%) 100%

Achieving a pass

It IS NOT a requirement that any major assessment category is passed separately in order to achieve an overall pass for the module.

Bibliography core texts

LPC/BPTC manuals on client counselling

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