Legal Information Management

Table of Contents - December 2011 - Volume 11, Issue 04  

Selected Papers Delivered at the BIALL Conference, June 2011

Why Study Law? The Relevance of Legal Information to the Law Student, Researcher and Practitioner

Graham Virgo

Abstract

Professor Graham Virgo, in delivering the 3rd Willi Steiner Memorial Lecture, asks if it is possible to become a legal practitioner in England and Wales without having studied Law as an academic discipline. Is there any point in studying for a Law degree? Students study any academic subject to acquire knowledge and to develop key skills. This is just as true of students studying Law. But is the knowledge acquired by a Law student and the skills which they develop really of benefit to them in legal practice? Crucially, what can the managers of legal information do to support the particular needs of Law students and academic researchers?

Keywords

  • legal education;
  • legal information

Graham Virgo is Professor of English Private Law at the University of Cambridge, Fellow and Senior Tutor of Downing College and Academic Bencher of Lincoln's Inn. His main areas of research are the Law of Restitution, Criminal Law and Equity. He has written Principles of the Law of Restitution (2nd ed., 2006) and is responsible for Maudsley and Burn's Trusts and Trustees: Cases and Materials (7th ed., 2008). He has contributed to the new edition of Simester and Sullivan's Criminal Law: Theory and Doctrine (4th ed., 2010) and to What About Law? Studying Law at University (ed. Barnard, O'Sullivan and Virgo) (2nd ed., 2011). A new textbook, Principles of Equity and the Law of Trusts, will be published by OUP in April 2012.