Skills seminar journal

Seminar 1 – Introductory
What did I do today?
During this seminar introductory I introduced myself and met everyone else in my seminar
group. I was able to demonstrate my presentation skills and team work skills. I learnt the
importance of leadership and team work during the group exercise. The role I specifically
demonstrated was my oral ability to expand on my ideas and presenting to other members of
the seminar group not just the groups we were allocated to.
What did I learn from the seminar?
The ability to network with other students and important information in regards to the skills
programme in seminar and lectures. I also learnt the ability to apply law principles and
reasoning to everyday situations by working to introduce solutions to the problem question
set.
What did I do well preparing for the seminar?
I looked over my skill reading book which would assist me in understanding legal principles
and reasoning.
Why did I do those things well?
I understood the importance of learning how to introduce new legislation and reading
legislation.
What difficulties did I have during preparation and the seminar?
Coming up with more unique ideas and solutions to the problem scenario we were required to
tackle in teams.
Why did I have those difficulties?
It was a difficult task however working as part of a team the ideas came together and assisted
us with the solutions to the problem.
How will I overcome those difficulties in the future?
Ensure to work as part of the team and not to give up if I have difficulties as others in the
team can help bring out ideas and inspire ideas.
What skills did I develop/gain from the seminar?
Team work and leadership skills were developed during this seminar.
How do I plan to further improve those skills?
Continue to work in my seminar as a team as we all our on a journey to bring out the best
potential in each other through networking and sharing ideas and experiences.

How may these skills help future career?
Networking is important as well as team work to help an organisation come forward with
ideas and expand their business. Therefore skills of team work and leadership is important.
If I had to prepare and participate in this session again, what would I do differently and
why?
I would introduce new ideas which were collectively introduced in the seminar as well as
look over legislation rules and skill techniques in my main skills recommended reading book.

Seminar 2 – Analysing Legal Texts (1)
In this seminar I analysed legal text in regards to legislation.
How legislation applies to case analysis and the format of legislation highlighting key
elements.
I read and made relevant notes through my reading on legislation in my skills reading book.
I understand the importance of understanding how legislation is structured and applied in
cases.
It was hard to take in a lot of information in regards to legislation structure.
It was the first time I had come across legislation in full text.
I will familiarise myself with legislation on Westlaw and Lexis and my textbook does not
cover full legislations.
Analysing was important in working to answer the exercise in the seminar. Therefore my
development of critical thinking and analysis was used thoroughly.
Too read relevant legislation and familiarise myself with longer scripts of text in both cases
and legislation.
Analysing and preparing for longer text reading will asset in attempting future assessments
and exercise in the legal career.
why?
Prepare myself men tally for the demand of analysing legal text

Seminar 3 – Legislative Drafting
We were put into teams to come up with our own versions of student codes of conduct for the
BCU campus.
From this seminar I learnt the ways in which legislation is formed and increased my
awareness of application of legislation even when drafting legislation.
I read my notes which I have made previously in regards to legislation and did extra wider
reading to prepare my construction of the student code of conduct.
I understood from my previous seminar the need to familiarise myself with legislation
elements.
Overall I had no difficulties as I was aware of the task requirements. However unlike
previous team work seminar tasks were I had difficulty in reaching unique ideas, this time the
team had many more ideas so we had difficulty in selecting which ones would be ideal for
our version of the student conduct.
Selecting ideas and specific points was a difficult I encountered.
I will try to select the least important points as a team and come up with better ideas which
will help put the best solutions at a the forefront of a problem question to achieve an easy
solution.
Critical thinking was one of the skills I improved as the team had many ideas but had
difficulty deciding the best ideas to put forward to the rest of the seminar group.
Expand on my critical thing through exercises and practices attempts.

Important decision making skills are vital to move forward in employment and the business
organisation you will work for without being prompted.
why?
I would make the decision of drawing up an action plan of the necessary codes of conduct
and least required.

Seminar 4 – Analysing Legal Texts (2) - Carlill
This seminar involved case summarising
The skills required to highlight key elements of the judgement.
I looked over my reading notes in regards to case summarising
I understood the importance of understanding key principles before attempting to analyse
cases.
One of the major difficulties I encountered was identifying the case summary under the
headings specified in the seminar guide.
I felt I struggled due to not being familiar and lacking confidence of approaching this style of
questions and case summary.
Look at more case summary exercises and attempt more precise at case summarising.
It is important to do background reading than solely rely on one textbook especially as I
realise the core textbook only relies on discussing the principles not in depth discussion in to
the background of the source of law. Therefore my research skills have developed and I
should access more reading material related to the topic which can help develop better
knowledge and understanding not just for coursework material but general gist of principles
of sources of law. I also developed my understanding how to use lexis in particular the
journal search box.
Not to solely rely on the reading list and I will access more material through online and
library material as it is important in particular for the course. This will help access better
research material and help with my understanding of topic in upcoming lectures. I also realise
the importance of using lexis search engine for not only research material for lectures but
coursework as it goes into more in depth discussions and analysis.

Research skills are vital for job offers and career progression as commercial awareness is
important for careers. Interviewers require evidence that the candidates have researched into
companies’ values and the job role in order to be culturally fit for the position applied for. It
is also beneficial for career progression as it is important to not telly on one piece of research
material for instance the company website as they can be biased about their company
progression and therefore newspaper articles like the Times can give key information to
showing the company is financially doing bad and criticised for the way it treat their
employees. Therefore research is essential for knowing whether company is financially and
socially in a position to provide a good career progression in the future. Lexis also identifies
news of solicitor’s law firms which would be ideal for the legal field of work for work
placements and will be ideal to impress the interviewers either through the application form
or face to face interviews
why?
I would ensure that I do not stick to the reading list and I should ensure to access other
research material I have available to. In particular Lexis search engine is good for journal
articles and my understanding has further developed on using Lexis for not only the student
research for the degree but employability with job offers in the legal field to show
commercial awareness.

Seminar 5 – Referencing
This seminar went into detail of how to reference in law assessments. This helped and
refreshed my memory and added to my notes on how to reference and to give credit to all the
sources I use in my assessments. We also looked at examples of bad referencing and good
referencing samples to understand what refracting requires.
The importance of referencing and acknowledging all sources used in assessments. This is
not just for evidence but also to achieve a higher mark.
I looked at the referencing system that is used on the Law course which is Oscola and
downloaded a quick use guide to get a grasp of the basics of referencing with this system.
I had a better understanding of what is required with this referencing system unlike other
referencing system such as Harvard which requires different methods to references and
crediting sources.
The difficulty I faced was trying to understand how to reference different types of sources as
I am only familiar with referencing books at A Level History essay standard whereas Law
Undergraduate level essay require more evaluation of different sources such as newspaper
articles, law commission reports, cases and journal articles.
I have never attempted to reference a law essay at undergraduate level so I felt it was difficult
to understand when it would be appropriate to use these references in terms of relevance of
acknowledging wider source than just textbooks.
I will attempt referencing in my formative assessments in order to ensure that I understand
what is required and needs to be improved when using the Oscola reference system.
It is an important skill to acknowledge sources through the Oscola reference system. This is
important for evidence for any legal arguments presented in law essays.

To practice referencing through formative assessments in order to understand how
improvements could be made before attempting to reference summative assessments as errors
in referencing can reduce marks
Referencing is important skill for evaluation and evidence of constructing legal arguments
therefore this skill will help to demonstrate advocate arguments as well as expanding legal
argument in summative assessments.
why?
I would look into detail of the sources that are required to be referenced with the Oscola
system in the full guide online as the overview helped me to understand the requirements but
not fully understand the use of using these sources in referencing law essays.

Seminar 6 – Analysing Legal Texts (3) - Statutory Interpretation: Cantwell
In this seminar we looked at statutory interpretation rules and principles such as the literal,
golden, mischief and purposive approach. The seminar looked into key cases to understand
how these rules are used and when they are required to be used. We also looked at law
reporting and the importance of reporting cases in the court hierarchy.
How rules are available for judges to assist in interpreting legislation therefore the outcome
of each individual case relies on what rule is used when correctly and required while
recognising parliament is the supreme law maker.
I read the core textbook chapter 3 of Elliot & Quinn as well as research of key cases on the
Westlaw database. This helped me get to grips with rules available to judges to assist in
interpreting legislations.
I prepared and realised the importance of learning key terminology from the previous lecture
which required exploring legal terms in order to understand how to identify legislation layout.
This approach was similarly used for preparing for this seminar.
I couldn’t understand how judges would apply the rules as there were so many factors other
than legal reasons to take into consideration. For instance would having the rules available be
open for the judge to interpret how he wishes and sees the legislation? This was one of the
difficulties I felt while I researched surrounding this topic.
I felt I didn’t acknowledge one of the common themes during all the seminar I had is that the
law is not black and white and the is a lot of grey areas in the law therefore it is not certain
how cases will be decided nor is it certain all cases will be decided differently and leaving the
cases to be opened to unlimited interpretation as it is important to recognise parliament is the
supreme law maker.
I will keep an open mind and keep the phrase the law is not ‘black and white’, therefore not
straight forward and that cases can go either way at the judge’s and courts discretion when
applying these rules.

A major skill I developed is debating that the legal system although recognise law is the
supreme law maker, individual judges can lead a outcome of a case to individual beliefs of
how they see parliament intended the legislation to be interpreted and reason for it to be in
force.
I intend to read journal articles to evaluate the discussions scholars and academic writers have
especially suggestions of reforms that should be taken into consideration.
Evaluation is important as it not only consists of analysis a problem but reflecting on its
possible outcome. Therefore this skill is vital for any career progression and is essential for a
law field of work where I have found that you have to make room to manoeuvre through
legal principles.
why?
I would ensure to read more research identifying where the law has gone either way in key
cases, therefore I will read journal articles related to key case in statutory interpretation rules
and principles.

Seminar 7 – Jury debate
I presented my ideas to the seminar groups the advantages and disadvantages of using jury.
Different reasons as to why juries are needed to and should not be allowed to continue in this
country.
What did I do well preparing for the lecture?
I read relevant chapters of my skills book and making notes for both sides of the argument.
Its important to support both sides of the argument with facts and evidence.
Deciding the conclusion of if there should or should not be juries in this country as both
arguments were strong in my research and reading I carried out.
The reason why I had difficulties were due to both the arguments were valid.
Try to not make definite conclusions and acknowledge both sides of the argument but
favouring one of the sides even more.
I developed my debating and advocacy skills.
By working on more arguments and analysing counter arguments in future scenarios.
Forward planning with arguments can help make better decisions and conclusions to
scenarios faced in work environment.
why?
I would look at my counter arguments and to approach the question with an open mind as the
law is not black and white and contains grey areas

Seminar 8 – Analysing Legal Texts (4) - Mandla
This seminar helped me refresh the use of statutory interpretation and case summarising. A
review the negotiation skills required.
What did I learn from the lecture?
I understood the elements required for the Analysing legal text component and importance of
using the required skills to pass the component. The negotiation exercise helped me in
understanding different methods of pursuing legal rights and better understanding of applying
the methods to factual like situations.
I looked over my notes from previous seminar on statutory interpretation and case
summarising. I read the required chapter of the text book Elliot & Quinn chapter 24 &25 in
regards to negotiation part of the lecture.
I understood in order to refresh my memory I needed to look over my previous notes to
greater my knowledge and understanding of what skills are required for the Analysing Legal
Texts component. Reading the chapters of the Elliot & Quinn book ensured I understood the
methods of negotiation involved in legal cases.
I had difficulty preparing in regards to the skills element for the assessments. For instance,
are we only required to use one set of rules in statutory interpretation or the usage is
unlimited. Therefore I reviewed all the stator interpretation methods. My other concern was
in regards to using the methods in negotiations for factual legal questions.
I was new to the assessment criteria and did not understand fully what was required and
allowed. Another reason I had difficulties with my lack of familiarity with the subjects and
topics discussed in regards to the negotiation lecture.
I will ensure that I read and answer the questions stated in my assessment as it is very easy to
drift away with what is required of me to pass this skills component of assessment (Analysing
Legal Text). I will also practice problem questions in regards to negotiation exercises to
greater my knowledge and understanding of the methods.

The skills I had developed were to ensure I will be practising and familiarity with problem
questions. Ensuring that I stick to the questions, will make sure my assessment answers are
consist and not packed with unnecessary information and knowledge of topics that I will not
be assessed on.
Consistency skills are important with practise and reading. It is only with practise I can
improve the required skills for future assessments and career prospects.
It is important to remain consistent through a job role therefore focusing and attention to
detail is important with the skill of consistency.
why?
I would read the question and stick to answering the question in the component; this would
have saved unnecessary questions in regards to being competent in the Analysing Legal Texts
component for skills. Practising more problem questions in regards to negotiations would
help me understand the methods better and greater my knowledge.

Seminar 9 – Analysing Legal Texts (5) - AG v Scotcher
The consolidation session required understanding what is required for the legal analysing text
component and skills required for critical analysis.
What I learnt from this lecture was how to apply the skills of critical thinking to my
upcoming formative assessment in skills and the importance of using and testing these skills
in my formative assessment.
I ensure that I referred to my previous notes and understood my strengths and weaknesses in
regards to the skills required for the assessment of Analysing legal text component.
I made use of my experience so far in skills and understood that this lecture in particular
would help address my weakness in attempting the Analysing Legal texts. Therefore this also
meant that I could address any issues that would set back my mark for the skills assessment.
I had difficulties in understanding how I could apply the statutory rules to the assessment.
I had difficulties with critical thinking in regards to applying stator interpretation.
I will ensure that I make use of formative assessments and practise my skills and I understand
I have the knowledge but I am hesitant in applying the knowledge as part of the critical
analysis skills required for this assessment.
The skills I developed was highlighting and reviewing my strengths and weaknesses.
Acknowledge my strengths but work harder to improve my weaknesses.
In understanding what my weaknesses are is a good skill in regards to criticising and ensuring
I can appeal better to my employers in the future.

why?
I would try to attempt and work at weakness in practise problem questions in regards to
applying statutory interpretation.

Seminar 10 – ALT - Formative Assessment
I had the opportunity to have my answer reviewed in regards to the application of stator rules
to the case analysis in the lecture by the module leader.
I understood that my overall application of statutory interpretation was satisfactory however I
should use better definitions of the rules in my future assessments.
I read the case continuously and had the opportunity to clarify if I was using statutory
interpretation correctly.
I expanded on my experience of preparing for the lecture in order to discuss and understand
how to improve my weaker areas of critical analysis.
Overall the difficulties for preparing for this formative assessment have decreased over time
but I still felt hesitant in my use of story interpretation.
A major reason why I had these difficulties was due to ensuring I was applying the statutory
rules correctly and lack of confidence in my answers as misleading integrations would not be
correct and ultimately be off point.
I will make sure that I have my answers checked regularly which will build my confidence in
approaching answering the questions.
I made use of taking on board common pitfalls students may encounter on applying statutory
interpretation which were common in majority of my use of statutory interpretation to case
and preparation for my answers.
Avoid common mistakes by reviewing my answers.

Comparisons of skills and approaches to problems can help in understanding better skills and
requirements of problem questions.
why?
I would ensure that I discuss with my other students problems they face (without collusion)
and how they deal with overcoming those common pitfalls.

Seminar 11 – Employment Interview & Negotiation
I prepared my completed skills audit for the seminar and had the opportunity to understand
what good CV’s are consistent of.
What did I learn from the lecture?
I understood from the lecture my strengths and weaknesses in regards to employability and
experience.
I prepared the skills audit and had it reviewed by tutor.
I have been working to improve my skills and experience for employability and been
attending career sessions in regards to improving my CV and put emphasis on my skills.
At first I had problems identifying examples where I have used my experience of skills.
However toward the end of completing the skills audit I became familiar with specific
examples.
It was hard to identify good examples and what would attract employers in persuading I have
obtained the skills I listed in my audit.
I will have confidence and continue to list example when I use my skills in educational and
employment situations.
The skills I have developed was selecting specific examples in support of evidence of skill
for potential employers and understanding my CV is updated and made good use of.
I will be continued to add to my experience folder of any potential situations that would stand
me out to other candidates to future employers.
Employability will increase with outlining specific situations and making use of identifying
my skills in real life scenarios with supported evidence of making use of my skills.

why?
I would ensure I keep a skill experience folder as it is important to keep experience and skills
I obtain obtained regularly to put me in the right emphasis of the skills I have and able to
demonstrate to future employers I am the right candidate.

Seminar 12 – Mahara workshops & e-portfolio formative feedback sessions
I had the opportunity to have my E-Portfolio reviewed
That my E-Portfolio is up to date and no concerns are raised in regard to improvement
Completed and updated the E-portfolio to date of the seminar workshop.
I understood the importance of formative assessment from my previous experience in the
assessments.
Overall I was up to date with the E-Portfolio and did not encounter any difficulties but I
needed to know if the layout was appropriate.
I felt the E-Portfolio may have caused confusion.
I will be uploading slide share views of my reflections to make it easier to the eye.
I understood the importance of IT skills and using technology to improve accessing and
reading the E-Portfolio.
Work on looking at other forms of media and resources to make my E-Portfolio interesting.
Technology is important in the marketing world and business organisations.
why?
I would have accessed Slide share website and uploaded some forms of reflections for my
tutor to review.

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