Essential Legal Skills: A Guide for First Year Law Students is designed with first year law students in mind. It provides a preliminary introduction to many of the skills that first year law students need to master, structured through the lens of the commonly used IRAC problem-solving methodology (Issue-Rule-Application/Analysis-Conclusion).
This book takes a practical approach to legal problem-solving, and guides students through each step of the problem-solving process. As such, each chapter is designed to explain foundational legal skills, and to help students to develop and master these skills at the beginning of their legal education. While this book introduces students to academic skills that are specifically relevant to law, it also introduces two practical legal skills: client interview and negotiation. These skills are particularly beneficial for first year law students and provide an innovative way of analysing legal questions and material facts (client interviewing), while evaluating both perspectives of a legal dispute (negotiation). Early development of these skills will help law students to engage with legal materials and hone their legal analysis, which is deepened through the use of reflection as a tool to improve relevant skills.
