1. Identify and explain the key functions of legal hearings and processes, and the personnel involved, in a court or tribunal.

Knowledge and understanding

2. Apply knowledge and understanding of core ethical duties of legal professionals to incidents and processes in practice.

Knowledge and Understanding Application

3. Identify some common issues relating to access to justice and analyse their potential impact on a legal hearing.

Learning; analysis

4. Reflect on the development of your own knowledge relating to legal processes, ethical frameworks or professional behaviours in practice.

Reflection

Students will write a reflective report on a court or tribunal hearing, to cover all of the Intended Learning Outcomes 1 – 4.

Where students can access a court or tribunal in England or Wales they may choose to attend a hearing and reflect upon that visit.

Where students are unable to access a court or tribunal in England or Wales, they will reflect upon a court or tribunal hearing through alternative media such as a written account, drama-documentary or mock trial, where the content accurately reflects practices in the courts and tribunals. Support will be given to students who choose this option to understand the context of the materials presented.

The assessed report will be scaffolded by the tutor/examiner with guidance on the aspects to consider. Students will identify the function of the hearing, , the roles of persons involved, and consider the potential impact of access to justice (LOs 1 and 3). They will also be required to consider the relevance of ethical codes for legal practitioners by identifying how they might apply to the observed hearing (LO3)

Common factors which may affect access to justice

Routes to qualification in the legal professions or England and Wales.

Court and tribunal personnel

Rights of audience

Overview of types of hearings in courts and tribunals, and an introduction to their purpose and function for example:

Trials

Plea and Trial Preparation Hearings

Directions Hearings

Plea before Venue and Allocation

Bail applications

Sentencing

Appeals

Determination of costs

Determination of damages

An introduction to professional regulation and ethical codes:

the Solicitors Regulation Authority

Bar Standards Board

Chartered Institute of Legal Executives

Common professional ethical dilemmas – conflict of interest; confidentiality; duty to court.

What happens in a court or tribunal? Who is involved in the hearings? What rules govern the professional behaviours of lawyers? These are the questions that you will be exploring in this module. You will be introduced to the functions of different types of hearings in courts and tribunals, and the people who take part in those hearings. You will also gain an insight into the professional working practices of Barristers, Solicitors and CILEX Lawyers and the types of ethical issues they face. You will then put this knowledge into practice, by reporting on a court or tribunal hearing.

The majority of learning materials will be presented online asynchronously organised as a series of weekly topics. Students will be encouraged to follow the weekly schedule where this is possible. Three synchronous online webinars will be held to provide opportunities for live interaction between students and lecturer, to cover an introduction to the module and learning expectations, an assessment guidance session, and a consolidation session prior to the assessment date. These sessions will be recorded for the benefit of students who are unable to attend at the scheduled time.

The online learning materials will be organised as a range of short activities for each topic. Instant feedback will be provided where appropriate on computer-aided tests of knowledge. Summaries and explanations of applied tasks will be available, allowing students to assess their progress against suggested answers.

Students will have a variety of opportunities to engage with ideas and concepts through questioning and other interactive learning activities such as polls and quizzes.

Students will be developing their understanding of the subject knowledge through application to real life scenarios in order to gain insight into factors that might have an impact on justice in particular situations. They may do this through a range of practical tasks including advising a client and identifying appropriate ethical solutions for practitioners to hypothetical dilemmas. Active learning will be at the heart of the strategy, and students will be asked to feed ideas and information back to the group for discussion through online collaborative learning spaces.


The balance of the independent study hours will be spent on activities related to the assessment, including organising and carrying out a visit to a court or tribunal, and the preparation, writing and editing of the summative assessment task.

PDP topics will be embedded in this module as follows, each of which will be the subject of a weekly topic with tutor-led and independent activities to develop knowledge of the legal professions and assist students to make informed choices about academic options and professional ambitions.

Pathways to employment: which route is right for me?

Professional values and behaviours

Reflective skills

¿Core Text

Gillespie A and Weare S, The English Legal System. (7th edn, Oxford University Press 2019) available on Law Trove

Recommended text

Herring J, Legal Ethics (2nd edn, Oxford University Press 2017) - available via Law Trove

Additional textbooks on English Legal System are available via Law Trove.

BSB Code of Conduct (Barristers)

SRA Code of Conduct (Solicitors)

CILEx Code of Conduct (Chartered Legal Executives)

Practical Law online database.