Law degree programmes in the UK, US, RF.

Law degree programmes in the UK, US, RF.

In the UK, a legal education usually begins with the completion of a bachelor degree in law, known as an LLB (Bachelor of Laws), which usually takes three years. In the subsequent vocational stage, a person who wishes to become a barrister join one of the Inns of Court before beginning the Bar Vocational Course. The completion of this stage is marked by a ceremony referred to as the call to the Bar. A third stage, known as pupilage, is a year-long apprenticeship, usually at a set of barristers' chambers, which customarily consists of groups of 20-60 barristers. Similarly, a person wishing to become a solicitor must also complete three stages: the first stage involves gaining a law degree; the second stage requires passing a one-year Legal Practice Course (LPC); and the final stage entails working for two years as a trainee solicitor with a firm of solicitors or in the legal department of a local authority or large company.

In the USA, a legal education comprises four years of undergraduate study followed by three years of law school. A law-school graduate receives the degree of juris doctor (J.D.). In order to qualify as a lawyer, a law school graduate must pass the bar examination.

In the RF a legal education begins with the completion of a bachelor degree in law, which takes four years nowadays. It is not necessary to have a license to practice law in Russia as a legal consultant, but only the members of the Russian bar associations (advocates) are permitted to appear in court on criminal matters. In Russia, an advocate must obtain an undergraduate degree in law (four years) or academic degree, practice law for two years and then pass the bar examination.

 

 

Commercial law is the body of law that governs trade and commerce.

Commercial law, also known as business law, is the body of law that applies to the rights, relations, and conduct of persons and businesses engaged in commerce, merchandising, trade, and sales. It is often considered to be a branch of civil law and deals with issues of both private law and public law.

Commercial law includes within its compass such titles as principal and agent; carriage by land and sea; merchant shipping; guarantee; marine, fire, life, and accident insurance; bills of exchange and partnership. It can also be understood to regulate corporate contracts, hiring practices, and the manufacture and sales of consumer goods. Many countries have adopted civil codes that contain comprehensive statements of their commercial law.

In the United States, commercial law is the province of both the United States Congress, under its power to regulate interstate commerce, and the states, under their police power. Efforts have been made to create a unified body of commercial law in the United States; the most successful of these attempts has resulted in the general adoption of the Uniform Commercial Code, which has been adopted in all 50 states (with some modification by state legislatures), the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories.

Commercial law refers to the body of law that pertains to commercial transactions. Its wide-ranging scope includes many different areas that affect businesses and individuals who enter into commercial transactions. Contracts, agency, bailments, carriers, sales, product liability, partnerships, corporations, unfair competition, secured transactions, property, commercial paper, insurance, and bankruptcy are all governed by commercial law.

 

Types of torts.

There are basically three types of torts: intentional torts, negligence and strict liability.

An intentional tort is a civil wrong that occurs when the wrongdoer engages in intentional conduct that results in damages to another. Striking another person in a fight is an intentional act that would be the tort of battery. Striking a person accidentally would not be an intentional tort since there was not intent to strike the person. This may, however, be a negligent act. Careless conduct that results in damage to another is negligence.

Generally, liability because of a tort only arises where the defendant either intended to cause harm to the plaintiff or in situations where the defendant is negligent. However, in some areas, liability can arise even when there is no intention to cause harm or negligence. For example, in most states, when a contractor uses dynamite which causes debris to be thrown onto the land of another and damages the landowner’s house, the landowner may recover damages from the contractor even if the contractor was not negligent and did not intend to cause any harm. This is called strict liability or absolute liability. Basically, society is saying that the activity is so dangerous to the public that there must be liability. However, society is not going so far as to outlaw the activity.

Acme Construction Company was constructing a highway. It was necessary to blast rock with dynamite. The corporation’s employees did this with the greatest of care. In spite of their precautions, some flying fragments of rock damaged a neighboring house. The owner of the house sued the corporation for the damages. The corporation raised the defense that the owner was suing for tort damages and that such damages could not be imposed because the corporation had been free from fault. Was this defense valid? No. While ordinarily fault is the basis of tort liability, there are cases in which absolute liability is imposed on the actor. This means that when harm is caused, it is no defense that none was intended or that due care had been exercised to prevent the harm.

Other examples of absolute liability situations would be harm caused by storage of flammable gas and explosives, crop dusting when the chemical that is used is dangerous, factories which produce dangerous fumes, smoke or soot in populated areas, and the production of nuclear material.

Common torts include:assault, battery, damage to personal property, conversion of personal property, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Injury to people may include emotional harm as well as physical harm.

Assault: Intentionally threatening a person with an immediate battery.

Battery: Intentional offensive touching of another person without the person’s consent.

Intentional or accidental damage to personal property: Property damage can occur in a number of ways, such as automobile accidents; breaking, marring or staining of valuables; or poor aim (such as baseballs or gunshots accidentally sent through windows). But any action to recover for property damage is limited to the jurisdiction of the court. For example, a magistrate can only decide a case involving a fire that burned down a building if the damages are ten thousand dollars or less.

Intentional infliction of emotional distress: A claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress requires a plaintiff to show (1) that the defendant engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct that was done recklessly or with the intent to cause severe emotional distress and (2) the plaintiff experienced severe emotional distress as a result of the conduct. Extreme and outrageous conduct is that which goes beyond bounds of common decency and is atrocious and intolerable to the ordinary person. Severe emotional distress is distress of such an intensity and duration that no ordinary person would be expected to tolerate it. A plaintiff is not required to show that she has suffered a physical injury in order to recover damages for severe emotional distress.

Capitalization issue.

The term capitalisation refers to the act of providing capital for a company through the issuance of various securities. Initially, company capitalisation takes place through the issuance of shares as authorised in the memorandum of association!. The authorised share capital, the maximum amount of share capital that a company can issue, is stated in the memorandum of association, together with the division of the share capital into shares of a certain amount (e.g. 100 shares of £1). The memorandum of association also states the names of the subscribers. The minimum share capital for a public limited company in Great Britain is £50,000. Issued share capital, as opposed to authorised share capital, refers to shares actually held by shareholders. Accordingly, this means that a company may authorise capital in excess of the mandatory minimum share capital but refrain from issuing all of it until a later date - or at all.

The division of share capital usually entails two classes of shares, namely ordinary shares and preference shares. The ordinary shareholder has voting rights, but the payment of dividends is dependent upon the performance of the company. Preference shareholders, on the other hand, receive a fixed dividend irrespective of performance (provided the payment of dividends is legally permitted) before the payment of any dividend to ordinary shareholders, but preference shareholders normally have no voting rights. There is also the possibility of share subdivision, whereby, for example, one ten-pound share is split into ten one-pound shares, usually in order to increase marketability. The reverse process is, appropriately enough, termed share consolidation.

Shares in British companies are subject to pre-emption rights, whereby the company is required to offer newly issued shares first to its existing shareholders, who have the right of 'first refusal'. The shareholders may waive their pre-emption rights by special resolution.

A feature of public companies is that the shares may be freely traded. Shares are normally sold to existing shareholders through a rights issue, unless pre-emption rights have been waived. Even here, though, new shares are not always offered in the first instance to the general public. But rather may be sold to a particular group or individuals (a directed placement).

Share capital is not, of course, the only means of corporate finance. The other is loan capital, typified by debentures. The grant of security for a loan by giving the creditor the right to recover his capital sum from specific assets is termed a fixed charge. Companies may also borrow money secured by the company's assets, such as stock in trade. This arrangement is known as a floating charge.

Contract formation.

Under the common law, a promise becomes an enforceable contract when there is an offer by one party (offeror) that is accepted by the other party (offeree) with the exchange of legally sufficient consideration (a gift or donation does not generally count as consideration); hence the equation learned by law students: offer + acceptance + consideration = contract. The law regards a counter offer as a rejection of the offer. Therefore, a counter offer does not serve to form a contract unless, of course, the counter offer is accepted by the original offeror.

For a promise to become an enforceable contract, the parties must also agree on the essential terms of the contract, such as price and subject matter. Nevertheless, courts will enforce a vague or indefinite contract under certain circumstances, such as when the conduct of the parties, as opposed to the written instrument, manifests sufficient certainty as to the terms of the agreement.

An enforceable agreement may be manifested in either written or oral words (an express contract) or by conduct or some combination of conduct and words (an implied contract). There are exceptions to this general rule. For example, the Statute of Frauds requires that all contracts involving the sale of real property be in writing.

In a contractual dispute, certain defences to the formation of a contract may permit a party to escape his/her obligations under the contract. For example, Illegality of the subject matter, fraud in the inducement, duress and the lack of legal capacity to contract all enable a party to attack the validity of a contract.

In some cases, individuals/companies who are not a party to a particular contract may nevertheless have enforceable rights under the contract. For example, contracts made for the benefit of a third party (third-party beneficiary contracts) may be enforceable by the third party. An original party to a contract may also subsequently transfer his rights/duties under the contract to a third party by way of an assignment of rights or delegation of duties. Thisthird party is called the assignee in an assignment of rights and the delegate in a delegation of duties.

Law degree programmes in the UK, US, RF.

In the UK, a legal education usually begins with the completion of a bachelor degree in law, known as an LLB (Bachelor of Laws), which usually takes three years. In the subsequent vocational stage, a person who wishes to become a barrister join one of the Inns of Court before beginning the Bar Vocational Course. The completion of this stage is marked by a ceremony referred to as the call to the Bar. A third stage, known as pupilage, is a year-long apprenticeship, usually at a set of barristers' chambers, which customarily consists of groups of 20-60 barristers. Similarly, a person wishing to become a solicitor must also complete three stages: the first stage involves gaining a law degree; the second stage requires passing a one-year Legal Practice Course (LPC); and the final stage entails working for two years as a trainee solicitor with a firm of solicitors or in the legal department of a local authority or large company.

In the USA, a legal education comprises four years of undergraduate study followed by three years of law school. A law-school graduate receives the degree of juris doctor (J.D.). In order to qualify as a lawyer, a law school graduate must pass the bar examination.

In the RF a legal education begins with the completion of a bachelor degree in law, which takes four years nowadays. It is not necessary to have a license to practice law in Russia as a legal consultant, but only the members of the Russian bar associations (advocates) are permitted to appear in court on criminal matters. In Russia, an advocate must obtain an undergraduate degree in law (four years) or academic degree, practice law for two years and then pass the bar examination.