Black-letter analysis of legal proceedings is a highly debated approach with many either completely in favour of it or completely against its application. In this essay, I will discuss the disadvantages, of this approach as presented in the article An Introduction and Guide to the Conduct of Legal Research , and their relevance to South African legal education specifically. Black-letter Law refers the basic elements of law which are free from dispute or doubt. It refers to the law accepted by most judges in a certain jurisdiction. The black-letter analysis focuses on the primary sources of law such as legislation. It aims at gaining an understanding of how the law and legal process impact the parties involved. I have selected the …show more content…
Thirdly, a fatal weakness of this approach to analysis is its inability to adapt with the changing legal system. With the developments in the context of law and the influx of more conscious and aware students the black-letter approach quickly became outdated . This means that this approach did not change enough or was not quick enough on the uptake of new principals and understandings as the times did and therefore students would not have benefited from use of this approach. Fourthly, the approach relies heavily on students being able to memorise large amounts of facts, as well as all the exceptions to rules and exceptions to exceptions . This approach thus lacks depth rather choosing to focus on theoretical knowledge than teaching students to how to apply their learned knowledge. Finally, the extremely narrow approach that is adopted by this approach means that a range of important subjects are downplayed which means that legal principals may be separated from their context, such as economic, social and cultural context, in which the law operates in practice . Thus, subjects such as legal history which will provide a student with context as to the adoption and application of laws are not given the proper attention and therefore, students lack the understanding of reasons why such laws have been adopted and implemented. Making use solely of this approach to legal analysis would mean that students studying law in South Africa may lack a fundamental ability to put
Legal research is not only about discovering how the law applies, it is also about determining how strong case is. Using legal research we are analyzing strength and weaknesses of client’s case, and using counteranalysis we determine how opponent can use weaknesses against us. In this paper we will establish why counteranalysis is important and why do we use it, when we use it and where we can apply it.
Sometime during your education, whether you’re a criminal justice student or paralegal studies student. You learn some type of law whether its criminal
According to the Deputy Chief Justice, Dikgang Moseneke prior to the establishment of the Black Lawyers Association (BLA), African attorneys faced several indignities and challenges, for instance, for African lawyers “It was an offence to practise within “white” towns or cities.” African lawyers were made to use the rear entrance of the courthouse unlike their white colleagues who were permitted to use the front entrance, African lawyers were most likely to lose a case based on racial bias rather than poor performance. African and white lawyers were segregated in court and African lawyers were only permitted to address the court once seated in their designated areas. As a means of affirming their status as an attorney, African lawyers carried their admission certificates1 in
At one level, it deals with the inadequacies of the law in addressing to the question of justice and at the same time highlights the importance of the law in a society as even in presence of inadequacies, law is needed as it is better than a state of lawlessness.
The down side of this is that learners may have only been taught what is needed to pass the exam and not retain any of the other theories they may need at a later stage.
The traditional legal perspective is law-centered. Law is purely law; it is limited in its
while at the same time not talk over the reader’s head or bore them to death with legal writing. Mr. Forsythe has collected original research that has exposed new pieces of evidences about important problems dealing with the legal reasoning choices and the pieces of evidences mentioned in the people’s majority opinions.
In his book on ?The Behavior of Law? Donald Black attempts to describe and explain the conduct of law as a social phenomenon. His theory of law does not consider the purpose, value, impact of law, neither proposes any kind of solutions, guidance or judgment; it plainly ponders on the behavior of law. The author grounds his theory purely on sociology and excludes the psychology of the individual from his assumptions on the behavior of law (Black 7). The theory of law comes to the same outcome as other theories scrutinizing the legal environment, such as deprivation theory or criminal theory; however, the former concentrates on the patterns of behavior of law, not involving the
There are two major areas of law, civil law and criminal law. As a society, people tend to not pay attention to law unless they are in the middle of an issue. The two areas of law are important to know though, since an issue can occur at any time and it is important to be prepared and have a basic understanding of what is happening and what to do. Many people do not know the distinction between civil law and criminal law, and while the ramifications vary considerably for each, the cases can occur simultaneously, which is why it is important to know the differences and in what scenarios each form is used.
The Critical legal studies movement is the successor of an American realist movement. The main characteristic of this movement is the criticism of formalism. The scholars of this movement believe that “techniques of legal reasoning – such as distinguishing cases, interpreting texts or analogizing from one area of law to another where similar problems arise – are so flexible that they can justify more than one outcome”. The scholars of the critical legal studies movement want to achieve is
Slow to develop. Some areas of law remain unclear and are in need of reform but the changes that are necessary cannot be made unless a case on the particular point of law comes before the court -
In this essay we will discuss the process of legal research, writing, and analysis. The subject matter will be presented in a clear, concise and objective manner. The textbook that we will be referencing is "Gilbert Law Summaries: Legal Research, Writing, and Analysis" 10th ed, BarBri Group, 2006.
The English Legal System has several sources of legislation, including the precedent cases, which form
And so today, it is needed to rely on socio-legal research for law reform, which serve the various purposes such as it suggests a reform in the existing law, socio-legal research, collect, search and make available the legal principle which are useful for society, it suggests a set of rules where no rules exist at all.