Dive in, the water's fine.

So, I've sorted it. This year shall be contract law, tort and trusts. I suppose that I am a creature of habit but there was just not enough to swing me to swap trusts for land law. Supposedly trusts is quite a difficult subject but so far after only a couple chapters in the study guide I find it really enjoyable. This contrasts remarkably with the land law study guide which I thought was very poorly written. In any event, now that I've decided on my three subjects I've got to plough my way through them.

This year I am going to change my study plan a bit. I think that I need to do more constant revision during the course of the year instead of leaving it to the end. Therefore I am going to try and save the weekends to go through the exercises in the study guides and textbooks in detail. Weekdays will be reading and note taking. I hope that this will be a good balance. The upside remains that starting this early in the year I can remain ahead of the game. The goal is to finish off the study guides by the end of December if I can to leave plenty of time for revision and further review. Fingers crossed.

Crikey!

Well I have to confess that it does not happen very often but when it does it can be rather humbling. I am wrestling with whether to study trusts or land law this year. I have canvassed opinion on which would be the better choice and opinion seems to be spilt about 50/50. My natural inclination would be to do trusts, however a study mate of mine is pushing hard for land law. So to be fair I have spent yesterday and today having a good look at land law to see what it would be like. Sadly I have to say that I am a bit shaken. It all seems very unfamiliar territory to me and I feel like I have been knocked on my backside to be honest. I've no doubt that with the time and effort it will pull together in some cohesive form but at the start I really feel in the deep end. Perhaps because I am an American I have not been exposed much to the property market in the UK but all these different types of estates and titles and registration and whatnot are extremely foreign to me and it will take me a bit of time to orient myself. Pray for Questor.

A tortious event

I can see that tort is going to be interesting if it is anything like the case of Cole v German Savings Bank. Obviously the key point of this is that a party's liability is limited due to the acts of a third party towards the defendant. In this case, an elevator shaft was empty and under construction. A young boy about 13 years old impersonated the usual elevator boy by dressing up in his costume. He then led a woman to the shaft, opened the door, and invited the patron to pass into the shaft and let her fall down the hole. Shocking I know. The court found that there was no evidence that the woman's injuries resulted from acts or omissions of the building owner. Rather, there was positive and convincing testimony that the woman's injuries were caused by the wrongful act of the young man, who was a trespasser. The building owner could not foresee or reasonably anticipate the young man's violation of the law and trespass upon its property. The young man's voluntary act broke the chain of causation between any prior negligence of the owner and the patron's injury. The owner's acts were not a proximate cause of the accident.

The results are in

After developing a blister on my finger yesterday from hitting the refresh button about a million times, I am pleased to report that I have my first year law school results. The good news is that I managed to score a 2.1 overall. Quite 'chuffed' about the result as my English friends would say. Surprisingly however I was disappointed to see that my lowest mark was in criminal which I had expected to be my highest grade. Most of my peers who got grades yesterday did comparatively well so I am happy for them. They also were surprised by lower than expected criminal law exams so I imagine that as the professor says there must be some elusive 'technique' for writing answers to that exam. I'm most pleased that I can now close the book officially on year one, that I do not have anything to 'correct' going forward, and that I can now jump on my second year subjects. Onwards and upwards.

One Week Away

Notice out from the university recently that LLB grades for European students will be out next Monday. Very excited and curious about seeing my results. Really don't have any idea how I did. I am expecting that I did the best in criminal law, ok in common law and so so in public law. However how this will rank in terms of actual grades I have no idea. Keep fingers crossed and I will let you know soon.