The competent study of law is a balance of excellent language ability, good reading and writing skills, good personal study discipline, a thorough appreciation of the relevant areas of substantive law and excellenct argumentative skills. Legal method is an important area of study for two main reasons: firstly, for the range of techniques it can offer to break into both primary and secondary legal texts and, secondly, it exposes reasoning processes concerned with the theory and practise of law. The book deals in both the areas mentioned and aims to deal with issues of how to. Although the book acknowledges the complexities of legal rules and the construction of arguments, it attempts to show interrelationships and to allow the commencement of constructing arguments.
The skill of legal research is central to the everyday work of lawyers. This book describes three stages in the process of legal research: planning, implementation and presentation.