Application
Introduction
Although the skill of organising law is often neglected in law schools, it is vital
for performing a number of tasks. Its benefit for these tasks should be
apparent now even to a beginning law student, and will certainly become
abundantly clear as the student progresses more with their study.
Macro Analysis
Macro analysis gives a sense of perspective to an area of law. This makes it
far easier to work within the area, for example to locate a relevant rule and to
understand it better by recognising its place in the overall scheme. This is why
the prime thing one should do when first entering a new area of law – be it a
subject or a major statute – is to perform a macro analysis.
Micro Analysis
Introduction
By organising or structuring law micro analysis makes it much easier to
perform most basic tasks with law. These consist of interpreting law, using
law, writing law, reading law, understanding law and remembering law.
Using Law
Micro analysis is crucial to working with law. Law possesses this natural
structure because law is made to be used, and this is the structure that law has
to have if it is to be used in litigation and transactions.
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These involve
applying law to facts to bring legal consequences to those facts. Organising a
rule into elements and consequences sets law
up to be used because one of
the primary tasks in using law is to check the rule against the facts of a case to
see if it applies to them. Dividing the rule into elements and consequences
provides a natural checklist for this task. When the rule applies to the facts, the
rule visits them with the consequences that it designates -
this is the
fundamental reason that the rule was made.
There are two basic rules for determining when a legal rule applies to a set of
facts to bring legal consequences. Rule 1 involves satisfying the elements while
Rule 2 asserts the irrelevance of surplus facts.
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This point is starkly emphasised by the model for using law where the first
column consists of a legal rule organised in this way, by dividing it into elements
and consequences joined by and within a conditional statement. The second
column consists of facts that fit within the elements to which the rule applies. This
is discussed in Chapters 17 Model for Using Law.
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