Instructions
Word limit is 1000 words, and this excludes footnotes and bibliography.
The assessment gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your ability to carry out an in-depth investigation into an area or areas introduced in the Law and Business Module and to present the findings in the assessment.
Quality of work that is expected
The assessment should be written in clear and concise language and should aim to demonstrate critical evaluation, analysis, and reflection rather than being merely descriptive of the topic covered. In particular, you will need to demonstrate your ability to carry out effective and relevant independent research as part of your assessment
Since your assignment is something you write in your own time (as opposed to under the pressure of an examination) we expect a high level of performance in the written communication and presentation skills. You should make sure that you use language proficiently and present knowledge, opinion or advice in a way that is succinct, accurate, grammatically correct, comprehensible, and appropriate for the context. o You should also make sure that your work is ‘office quality’, i.e., well presented, with no spelling mistakes or formatting errors.
Referencing
Use OSCOLA (the Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities) for citing/referencing all material used in your assessment. Full details and online tutorials on referencing using OSCOLA can be found at: www.law.ox.ac.uk/oscola. Please note that your references must be expressed sufficiently clearly that any reader of the work could check them easily
Bibliography
All works to which you refer within the text and in the footnotes must be included in the bibliography, as well as any other sources you have used in the course of the research. Please note that you may consult any research source you want, but it must be available to read in English.
OSCOLA requires bibliographies to be laid out in three parts:
• Table of cases
• Table of legislation
• Bibliography – all other secondary resources (e.g. books, journal articles, newspaper articles and so on)
Further information and online tutorials on referencing using OSCOLA can be found at: www.law.ox.ac.uk/oscola
Learning Outcomes
Your assessment must achieve an appropriate range of the following learning outcomes. As a reminder, a learning outcome is something which you will be able to do, and to demonstrate that you can do at the end of a particular piece of work; in this case once you have completed the assessment.
Knowledge and understanding:
• Demonstrate a high level of specialist knowledge and of conceptual understanding at the forefront of the areas of professional and business practice studied
• Demonstrate a high level of conceptual understanding of principles of business and management so as to understand, anticipate and respond to the needs of business clients
Intellectual: • Evaluate critically current knowledge, research and advanced scholarship in the areas of professional and business practice studied, including research and professional methodologies where appropriate; • Analyse complex legal, business and management issues affecting client matters both systematically and creatively, making sound judgments in the absence of complete data in complex and unpredictable situations
Assessment
QUESTION 1
AJ are analysing the legal market to inform their strategy.
The partners have allocated a selection of firms to trainees and have asked trainees to submit a SWOT analysis of their allocated firm to the partners.
You have been asked to complete a SWOT analysis of Slaughter and May. You are keen to impress the partners and intend to show your analytical and research skills in this task. Ensure that you explain why the points you make are a strength/weakness/opportunity/threat and reference your sources.
You must use publicly available information (including information on ULaw’s library database) and reference your work throughout so that the information can be verified. No credit will be given for points based on personal knowledge or insight gained other than via public sources.
