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Barker, D --- "Practical Legal Skills" [2007] LegEdDig 54; (2007) 15(3) Legal Education Digest 54

Book Review: Practical Legal Skills, R Hyams, S Campbell & A Evan, Oxford University Press (3rd ed) 132pp

Professor David Barker AM

[2007] LegEdDig 54; (2007) 15(3) Legal Education Digest 54

In their preface to this book, the authors tell us that the teaching of ‘lawyers skills’ has generally continued to expand since the publication of the previous second edition. However this expansion has not come without its controversy and the manner of its integration into the general law syllabus has been the subject of some debate among legal educators. In fact, in the preface, the authors, who all have some academic connection with the Monash University Faculty of Law, criticize their own Faculty for integrating practical legal skills into the compulsory substantive law subjects in the undergraduate degree of their Law School instead of retaining it as a discrete undergraduate law subject, ‘Skills Ethics and Research’.

This is one of the problems with any aspect of practical legal training in that because it is a comparatively recent program, it is sometimes treated as an adjunct to the main legal degree course. However, the reality is that having completed a qualifying legal degree, either at Undergraduate and Postgraduate level, students are still required to undertake a course in practical legal training before being granted admission as a legal practitioner by their respective State Admitting Authority. There is therefore, some validity in the argument by the authors in stressing the importance to legal training of applying legal principle in a simulated practical exercise.

This debate is continued in the Introduction to the text where the authors accept that legal educators ‘have taken different routes in relation to developing student awareness of practical skills and legal ethics’ and then extends the debate into a consideration of the relative importance of content as against method. This does give the text an authenticity because it contains the philosophical approach of the authors as to why they have developed the context of the book. Knowledge of the Introduction is integral to an understanding of how the techniques for the acquiring of professional skills have been incorporated into the text, particularly with regard to the organization of the learning exercises. One important aspect of the Introduction is the stress placed on the need to take role-playing seriously. This was of interest to the reviewer as, in my experience, many law students lack confidence in this aspect of legal training, and often it is the first time that they have been required to take part in an exercise of this kind. Having said this, the advice given under this heading is of particular assistance to those students who might have some concerns when undertaking such an exercise and as to how they might acquire a technique which will develop their self-confidence and make them effective legal practitioners.

The overall content of the book is divided up into Interviewing, Advising, Writing and Drafting, Negotiation and Mediation, and Advocacy. Each chapter is accompanied by a series of exercises which are just not of the usual stereotype often incorporated in books of this nature. So, for example, under the Chapter headed Advising, there is an exercise which requires the reader to consider a scenario where the client is presented with bad news. Likewise in the following Chapter, Writing and Drafting, the student is expected to consider and analyse a bad letter.

It is, however, in the final two chapters that the student can gain the greatest benefit from the book.

The authors have responded to the increasing emphasis on the areas of Negotiation and Mediation with a comprehensive review of all aspects of the techniques needed to master these two skills. Particularly commendable are the various charts and diagrams set out in the text to assist the student in preparation for their simulation exercises.

In the same way, in Chapter 6, Advocacy, there is a refreshing approach as to how students may develop their skills in this most demanding part of a lawyer’s profession, from the choosing of an opening line, through to making notes for a hearing and presenting a plea.

It is difficult to be critical of a work of which one is aware will be of great value, both to the students preparing for the legal profession and also those law academics who have a genuine interest in assisting them to acquire these skills.


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