Professional Legal Practice - LAW00103M
- Department: The York Law School
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: M
- Academic year of delivery: 2025-26
Module summary
This module will provide students with insight into the practical, professional and economic issues involved in providing legal services to clients, at both an individual and provider level. This insight will be in the context of contemporary forms of legal practice, and current issues facing providers of legal services, including the impact of technology and AI.
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Summer Semester 2025-26 |
Module aims
The module aims, as part of the overall LLM programme, to enable students to develop a systematic understanding and critical awareness of practical, professional and economic issues involved in providing legal services to businesses and/or individuals. This insight will enable students to have a better understanding of the role of a lawyer as a professional adviser, as well as the entities that provide legal services, and their individual models and strategies.
Module learning outcomes
- Apply established techniques of research and enquiry to develop a practical and systematic understanding of the legal services provision, and the wider contexts in which services are provided to businesses and individual
- Explain the basic economics of providing legal services
- Explain, apply, discuss and critically evaluate well-established business analysis concepts, principles, theories and perspectives in the analysis of legal services providers, their clients and markets, and the wider contexts in which services are provided
- Analyse and critically evaluate models and strategies of legal services provision
- Evaluate the role of a legal adviser and the competencies required to meet client expectations
- Critically analyse contemporary issues affecting access to justice
- Critically evaluate the impact of technology, including AI, on legal services and access to justice
Module content
Students will develop an understanding of, and critically analyse:
(a) the market for and regulation of legal services
(b) the models used to provide legal services to businesses and individuals
(c) the economics of providing legal services
(d) entities which provide legal services
(e) the strategies adopted by those entities
(f) the role of a legal adviser and client expectations
(g) issues of access to justice and wider responsibilities of legal services providers
(h) the impact of technology, including AI, on legal services and access to justice
Indicative assessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100 |
Special assessment rules
None
Additional assessment information
The assessment will provide student choice as to subject matter, in agreement with their workshop tutor. Students will identify, analyse and critically evaluate a contemporary issue affecting professional legal practice.
Indicative reassessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100 |
Module feedback
Students will receive ongoing feedback from tutors and peers during seminars and workshops during the teaching period.
Written feedback will be provided on assessment submissions within the University turnaround time.
Indicative reading
Richard Susskind, Tomorrow's Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future (OUP, 2017)
Richard Susskind, Online Courts and the Future of Justice (OUP, 2021)
Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind: The Future of the Professions (OUP, 2022)