| Unit name | Jurisprudence |
|---|---|
| Unit code | LAWD20004 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 4 (weeks 1-24) |
| Unit director | Professor. Burnside |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
None |
| School/department | University of Bristol Law School |
| Faculty | Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
Why is this unit important?
Law and legal institutions are among the great civilising forces of human society. But law and legal institutions change. They will change even during your lifetime! Jurisprudence is thus important because it enables you to study law and legal institutions in their historical, philosophical and political context. This means you have a chance to think more broadly about law, what can be good or bad about it, and to imagine ways in which law can be different. In this way Jurisprudence helps you to grapple with legal ethics (especially important if you are going into legal practice). It also helps you to think creatively about how law might apply to new situations and to think critically about complex questions including the nature of law, judicial decision-making, social justice, feminist legal theory and critical race theory.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
Instead of asking “what is the law?”, Jurisprudence asks “what is law?” It thus builds on your knowledge of how law and legal institutions ‘work’, gained from your first-year subjects, to explore the nature of law itself. By enabling you to place law in a wider context, it complements your second-year studies, each of which will require you to think about how law works in a different setting. And by helping you to expose the presuppositions and assumptions of lawyers, and to evaluate competing theoretical approaches to law, Jurisprudence lays the groundwork for more independent study of law in your final year, including your research project.
An overview of content
We begin by thinking about the nature of justice before considering the question of what is a legal system. After that we ask whether law has any necessary moral purpose and whether an unjust law can really be law. In the second teaching block we will begin by thinking about whose interests the law serves before reflecting on the role of law in modern society. We will wrap everything up by thinking about how judges should decide cases, considering how the different theories we have been thinking about all year apply to case-law.
How will students, personally, be different as a result of the unit?
You will develop the ability to master abstract thought and acquire the confidence to think and speak about law in a more general way. You will also be able to identify and critique underlying assumptions in law and legal practice. You will also be able to show how different ways of thinking about Law influence the way individual cases are (or could be) decided and be able to evaluate the competing merits of these different theoretical approaches.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this unit a successful student will be able to:
We want you to get to grips with quite complex ideas and so you will need to read some quite theoretical and abstract material. Asynchronous materials will be provided on BlackBoard, along with in-person lectures. Some of these materials will explore the same body of ideas from slightly different perspectives, depending on the emphasis of the author(s) and teacher(s). This type of ‘scaffolded learning’ will help you to build up a good mental map of each particular thinker’s argument. Seminars will explore these thinkers in regard to central questions, which will help you get to the nub of the problems. By preparing answers to these questions in advance, and by being willing to discuss these in seminars, you will steadily acquire the skills and the confidence to be able to engage with each thinker, and their ideas, and also to develop your own opinions. All of this will help you acquire the abilities to think critically about the different subjects under discussion and to write about them well in your formative and summative assessment. Seminars will include the opportunity to consider how to apply the theories you have been studying to a specific case. They will also include a marking exercise which will help you to understand better how the University’s marking criteria and grid applies to the study, and marking, of Jurisprudence.
Tasks which help you learn and prepare you for summative tasks (formative):
Consistent with the intended learning outcomes, the formal formative assessment is designed to give you the chance to describe general approach(es) to law and to critique these perspectives effectively. We will therefore invite you to compose a single piece of writing in which you will explain the main lines of criticism of a given thinker’s theory of law. This is closely related to the summative assessment which will require you to carry out something similar (though the latter will have the added requirement that you should demonstrate application to case-law). The formative assessment will be a maximum of 1000 words. It will be released midway through the year and you will receive individual written feedback and general, cohort-wide feedback, usually in the form of a lecture. Discussions in seminars based on your prepared answers to seminar questions provide additional formative feedback beyond the formal formative assessment.
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
You will answer one Coursework essay question (3000 words). This will require you to engage critically with the ideas of a selected theorist drawing on material from both halves of the course (i.e. TB1 & TB2). There will also be a requirement to show how the theory illuminates an element of case law or legal policy. The assessment will be submitted in the summer assessment period. The assessment in this unit covers all Intended Learning Outcomes for this unit.
When assessment does not go to plan:
When a student fails the unit and is eligible to resubmit, the unit will be reassessed on a like-for-like basis. Re-assessment will take the form of an opportunity to answer a different essay question (3000 words) with the same format as the original assessment. The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessment required for credit in the usual way.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. LAWD20004).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
