By the time you listen to this message, it may be too late. The ‘Graduate Diploma in Law’ may seem somewhat daunting, but it isn’t.  If someone told you to learn an entire phone directly in a hurry, you would have trouble. However, if I told you to look up two phone numbers, learn them, and recite them back to me as evidence you’d been through the phone book, you’d feel a lot happier (maybe).

You should first locate the examiners’ reports section of your law school. If you’re at the College of Law, these may be on ELITE. If you’re at BPP Law School, these may be on the VLE Blackboard. If you can’t find them, you should have a look at the published exam papers. Then simply make a spreadsheet of topics as they appear by year for each subject. For some legal education providers, there are 7 questions per paper in each of the six foundation subjects, and you’ll normally get 6 or 7 problem questions in each. Possibly for a subject such as contract or tort you may get an essay question. The thing about essay questions is that they’re quite good for anyone to have a go at, especially if you’re desperate or stressed in an exam, but can be very difficult to do well in.

There might be about 5-10 issues in each question. You should then successfully identify the issues (I), and for each issue describe succinctly the law relating to the issue (R), including relevant statutes or cases, apply the law relating to your issue (A), and come up with a meaningful conclusion based on your analysis (C). This is known as IRAC. Sometimes there may even be no right answer – but examiners will wish to see that you’ve applied IRAC successfully. So, in other words, the ‘deal maker’ is not you knowing the College manual, Nutshells or Nutcases inside out, but your ability to apply IRAC successfully.

Here are some key topics for each of your six foundation subjects. Use this list at your own peril – you should know 3 or 4 in each well to do the problem questions in each paper (assuming that there are 3 problem questions) out of a choice of 7 (if that is the format of your exam, that is).

Contract

• offer and acceptance
• misrepresentation
• remedies
• promissory estoppel, consideration and duress
• anticipatory breach and frustration
• mistake
• terms

Tort

• general negligence
• professional negligence
• nuisance
• defamation
• occupiers’ liability
• vicarious liability
• pure economic loss or nervous shock

Equity and Trusts

• equitable remedies
• three certainties, formalities, constitution
• secret trusts
• private purpose trusts
• tracing and liability of strangers
• implied trusts of the home
• maintenance and advancement

Land

• leases and licences
• easements
• freehold covenants
• leasehold covenants
• enforcement of third party interests against a purchaser
• mortgages
• co-ownership

Criminal

• murder
• manslaughter
• theft and making-off-without-payment
• sexual offences/non-fatal offences against the person
• fraud
• criminal damage
• robbery and burglary

 Constitutional and administrative

this is highly variable, and is likely to depend much on your legal education provider

• the rule of law
• separation of powers
• the Royal Prerogative
• human rights (articles 2, 3, 5)
• human rights (articles 8/10)
• judicial review (standing)
• judicial review (procedural impropriety, legitimate expectation)