A-Level Law: What I Learnt and What Really Helped
- Alice Spencer
- Jul 27, 2020
- 10 min read
Every undergraduate student you speak to will tell you that their course is truly original and unlike any other, but a major selling point of a degree in Law that makes it stand out from the crowd is that there are no specific A-Level requirements to study it. Of course certain subjects help, for example essay subjects like History and English, but technically speaking, someone can study Music, Physics and PE and wind up sat beside you in the lecture theatre.
I was told at countless university open days that my A-Level in Law didn't matter and that it would set me at no advantage. Yet, despite this, I still continuously felt that my peers who didn't study A-Level Law were being thrown in at the deep end, expected to understand things about our legal system that had taken me two years to learn. Here, I'm going to cover exactly what I was taught at A-Level, and provide a crash course in the areas that have come in use in my degree.
The Exam Specification
My year group were the first to sit Eduqas' new A-Level in Law; in recent years, many exam boards have created new specifications for their exams, designed to be tougher on students with more challenging content. The qualification consisted of three exams, Paper One worth 25%, and Papers Two and Three each worth 37.5%.
Paper One focussed on the English Legal System. This was my first taste of studying Law and provided the foundations of what I know today. The questions on this paper were very description and discussion-based, using a 'learn it and repeat it back' style of learning. It consisted of an array of topics, including Delegated Legislation, Statutory Interpretation and Judicial Precedent, and whilst this may sound like a bunch of legal jargon to the non-lawyer, these are vital topics that have carried through to my degree.
Paper Two was much more application-based and focused on actually learning the law and putting it to use against fictitious scenarios. For this paper, we covered Criminal Law, Tort and Human Rights, each with a separate section on the paper. Whilst I haven't yet met these topics in my degree, application-style questions have been a large feature of my first-year studies, and getting into practice with these early on definitely came in handy.
Paper Three was centred around evaluating the law we had learned in Paper Two, covering the same three areas. Again, Crime and Tort are second-year modules that I have not yet studied, with Human Rights being an optional third-year module. However, being able to critically evaluate anything is a necessary skill for a Law degree, something I also developed in my two other A-Levels.
What Came in Use - A Crash Course Before your Degree
Admittedly, not all of the things I learned at A-Level have come into use in my degree besides the skills they helped develop. However, I remember often thinking at the beginning of the academic year that, with Law being such a complex subject, there ought to be a handbook or crash-course of basic, need-to-know information that students can access before they begin, rather than plunging straight into their degree and picking it up as they go. Below are some of the basic concepts that have been useful time and time again in my first year of studying Law at degree-level:
The hierarchy of the courts - the courts of England and Wales can be confusing to a newcomer, but understanding them and their hierarchy is vital to carrying out legal research and understanding judgments (note the lack of 'e' when talking about legal judgments). You might have heard of 'appealing' a case, and this is where the hierarchy comes in - if a party is unhappy with the outcome of a case, be it the conviction or acquittal, the sentence or remedy prescribed, the liability placed upon someone, they can appeal it upwards to a higher court. Of course, there are certain requirements that must be met, but generally understanding this concept and which courts rank where is something every Law student should know. Here, I have included a very basic diagram of the court hierarchy in England and Wales.
The distinction between criminal and civil law - you may notice that there are different starting points for cases in the courts, and this links in to understanding the distinction between the criminal and civil sides of law. Because criminal law is typically what springs to mind when thinking about law in general, it is easy to think that murders, thefts and the other crimes we see in TV dramas are what make up the wealth of what goes on in our courts. In reality, the law touches on so much more, to name a few examples:
Family law matters, such as divorce and child custody
Issues of tort, such as negligence, trespass and nuisance
Contractual disputes
Issues of land law, for example ownership or border disputes
These are just a tiny fraction of what goes on in the civil courts, but grasping this distinction is really important in eliminating a lot of confusion.
To put this into practice, many of you will have seen signs reading 'trespassers will be prosecuted', but knowing the distinctions between civil and criminal law, this isn't possible. In criminal cases, there is the prosecution, trying to prove guilt, and the defence, doing the opposite. However, in civil cases (such as those dealing with trespass), there will typically be the claimant (previously known as the plaintiff), who brings the case to court, and the defence, again trying to prove innocence - no prosecution involved. So, next time an angry neighbour threatens you with prosecution for crossing over their land, remind them of their error and of the distinction between criminal and civil law.
Statutory interpretation - I too was intimidated when I first saw the words statutory interpretation having just began my A-Level in Law, but I can promise it isn't as scary as it seems. Statutory interpretation is simply about how judges interpret Acts of Parliament (also known as Statutes) when they are asked to apply one in court. If you imagine judges as wearing a tool belt, there are a number of different tools a judge can employ when interpreting a statute. Here are four of the key rules and methods judges may follow:
The Literal Rule - interpreting the Act literally and plainly, even if the result this brings is absurd or undesirable.
The Golden Rule - interpreting the Act in such a way as to avoid absurdity (e.g. by adding or substituting certain words).
The Mischief Rule - looking at the 'mischief' Parliament was trying to stop with the Act and interpreting the Act as so to provide a remedy for that mischief.
The Purposive Approach - looking at what the purpose of the Act was and interpreting the Act to give effect to that purpose.
There are several other approaches, but these are the basic outlines that will allow you to understand why judges have decided a case one way or the other.
Judicial precedent - once again, another duo of intimidating legal jargon, but again I can assure you this is not too difficult to grasp. A teacher once said to me that, if it weren't for judicial precedent (sometimes referenced as 'common law'), he would have left law behind years ago, as this is what adds meat to the bones of Acts of Parliament and transforms law into something more than a decision that could be spat out by a computer. The decisions made by judges, the way they interpret statutes and the reasons they give for deciding a case in the way that they do form precedents; whilst not written down in an Act of Parliament, precedents set by judges are binding, meaning they must be stuck to in later cases, unless certain requirements are met which allow precedent to be departed from.
One thing you might notice when studying criminal law is that murder is not defined under any Act; whilst there used to be a Murder Act 1751, this was repealed. Our current definition for murder in fact comes from the common law, and this is just one example of where the law in England and Wales has been shaped by judges. Understanding what precedent is and how it operates will allow you to have a real head-start when it comes to looking at cases at degree-level.
The different types of legal personnel - whilst lawyers and judges might be the first personnel to spring to mind when thinking about legal professionals, there are so many different types of legal personnel that it can sometimes become confusing as to what they do and where lines can be drawn between them.
The professionals commonly labelled as 'lawyers' can typically be split into two categories - solicitors and barristers (note the difference in spelling from barista - barristers don't work in coffee shops). The lines between these two professions have become increasingly blurred in recent years, however the training required and the day-to-day work of solicitors and barristers can be very different. Barristers are typically the lawyers you would see in court wearing a wig and gown and representing their client, whilst solicitors typically work in offices (although solicitors can apply to be able to represent their clients in court).
You will often see the acronym CPS in the legal field, and this stands for the Crown Prosecution Service. The CPS, as the name suggests, manages prosecution cases in England and Wales, and is headed by yet another acronym, the DPP, Director of Public Prosecutions.
Heading towards the judicial end of the legal profession are Magistrates, often shortened to JPs or Justices of the Peace. As you may be able to gather from the name, Magistrates will be found in the Magistrates' Court, but unlike other judges, who are usually ex-lawyers, they are ordinary lay-people who volunteer to hear cases. This may seem particularly unusual, but considering and weighing up the pros and cons of involving people from a non-legal background in the justice system is something you will meet at degree-level.
There are of course different types of judges, ranging from district and circuit judges who sit in the lowers courts to Justices of the Supreme Court. Whilst I can't say that memorising the years of qualified experience needed to become each type of judge was a skill I transferred from A-Level to degree, being aware that there simply are different types of judges and maybe looking into the different roles they play will give you a head-start when it comes to your degree.
We can see lay-people appear in our justice system again when looking at juries. Before studying law at A-Level, I wasn't even sure if we had juries in England and Wales, having only been something I'd seen on American legal dramas. However, juries can be found in the Crown Court and give people the opportunity to be tried by their peers. A controversial topic, the benefits and negative effects of juries are also something to think about before beginning a degree, especially in recent times with debate over their importance due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Confusion over Europe - no one can ignore the unpredictable and unsteady process that has been leaving the EU following the very close referendum decision back in 2016. However, amongst questions asked such as, 'Will we still be part of Eurovision?' and, 'Will we still compete in the Europa League?', some have asked 'Will we still have human rights?', as the UK is indeed a signatory of the European Convention of Human Rights. However, there is a very important distinction between the European Union and what we will call the Convention, with both being touched on by a Law degree.
The European Union, formerly the European Economic Community, was joined by the UK in 1973. Essentially, countries belonging to the EU (often referenced as Member States) surrender part of their sovereign law-making ability upon joining, meaning they must comply with EU Law where EU Law applies. In return, there are a number of benefits, for example trade agreements, free movement and schemes such as the Erasmus scheme, which allowed university students to study across Europe.
Contrastingly, the European Convention of Human Rights is an international agreement set up by the Council of Europe, an entirely separate body to the EU. Confusion can typically arise between the Council of Europe, creators of the Convention, and the European Council, a body within the EU, but it must be stressed that there is no overlap. The Convention laid out Human Rights in law, and was brought into our own law through the Human Rights Act 1998, which meant that any Human Rights issues could be settled at home rather than travelling to the European Court of Human Rights. There are several signatories of the Convention that aren't even members of the EU, such as Russia. Therefore, knowing this distinction will avoid confusion and easy mistakes early on in your degree course.
Structure of UK political system & the separation of powers - of course, everyone is aware of the Houses of Parliament, containing the Commons and Lords, but there are other elements of the structure of the UK political system that are touched upon in a Law degree and can lead to some confusion.
Firstly, you will likely come across the House of Lords being spoken of as a court as opposed to a chamber of the Houses of Parliament, and this can even be seen in the hierarchy of the courts diagram previously. This is because the House of Lords, or rather part of it, did used to be the highest court in England and Wales. However, under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, it was replaced with the Supreme Court, which came into use in 2009.
The reason for this change is something called the Separation of Powers. To put it briefly, our legal and political system can be split into three 'branches' - the legislative, who make laws (e.g. MPs and Lords), the judiciary (judges) and the executive (the Prime Minister and Cabinet). Ideally, these branches should work and exist independently from each other, as allowing one branch to control others could lead to too much control and abuse of power. Knowing this, it is easy to understand why the House of Lords was replaced with the Supreme Court; not only were members of the House of Lords creating the law, they were enforcing it in court, which arguably gave them far too much power.
However, there is some overlap between the legislative and executive, which can cause some confusion. The Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet (i.e. Government Ministers) are known as the executive branch, but they also sit as MPs in Parliament as part of the legislative branch. Awareness of this overlap is important when learning about the separation of powers as, despite aiming for independence between branches, there are still cross-overs.
Hopefully, this has covered the key information from A-Level Law that came in use later in my degree. However, it is important to stress that doing different A-Levels will not set you back - there is virtually no difference in grades between those who did A-Level Law and those who didn't, and sometimes having done it can give a false sense of confidence and result in lower grades.
If you have any further questions about the topics discussed or suggestions for topics you would like us to discuss further, please don't hesitate to comment below or contact us by email.
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