The Law And You: Introduction

Disclaimer: nothing here should be considered legal advice nor are any guarantees or warranties made as to its accuracy.  If you do see something you believe is inaccurate please let me know.  This information is provided purely for your interest.

The law in England and Wales is often complicated, patchy and out of touch with society. Yet these rules are supposed to set the boundaries within which we live our lives.  Be it in the more familiar criminal law – defining rights and wrongs within society – or in more obscure law such as contract or trusts, laws affect everything in our lives.

To live in ignorance of the law is not bliss. If you don’t know what the law is, you cannot follow it.  There is a risk that you will break the law without realising it.  This  ‘legal uncertainty’ can have a very negative impact on society, and is a hallmark of a very strong, authoritarian state. In such a state, people can be made into criminals at the whim of bureaucrats.  Unfortunately the UK increasingly looks like such a state.

Within the past few years, Parliament has produced a record amount of legislation.  On average, over three hundred pages a week have been produced.  This is too much for anyone to be familiar with.  In recent cases it has been seen that even lawyers working for the government do not understand exactly what the law is (See, for example, this post from Geeklawyer).  No person can claim intimate knowledge of all law within the UK.

What I hope to achieve with these posts, however, is to bring you a bit closer.  Posts in this category are written with young people in mind, perhaps those considering studying law, but I hope it will be of interest to anyone who wants an introduction to the legal system of England & Wales.  The aim is not to create something like the FreeLegalWeb, which aims to make all English law available from one source online.  This is just a humble introduction.

Thank you for reading this first post, I hope it has piqued your interest.  In the next post we will be looking at sources of law and, in particular, an introduction to the constitution of England & Wales.

Never heard of it?  That is because it is not written down.  The law can be a bit like that.

New blog, same great taste

Clint Eastwood (of all people) once said ‘take your profession seriously; don’t take yourself seriously’.  It seems a sensible adage to live by, in the spirit of which you will notice a fairly drastic restructuring of this website.  In addition to http://nigebox.com, the site has been split in two, with a new sister site: http://nigelaw.com.  The former is now to be a tongue-in-cheek place for ranting about the world and a place for me to write about other things as I see fit.  It should be read with Clint’s wise words in mind, and not taken too seriously.

This however is the first post of nigelaw (see what I did there?) – the objective of which is quite different.  In September I will begin studying for the LPC (Legal Practice Course) in London, and will be writing about my experiences and hopefully collating some useful content on these pages.  I enjoy reading a number of serious (and not-so-serious) blawgs written by practitioners, academics and students.  The aim is to throw this blog in amongst them.

Exactly what form the ‘useful content’ mentioned above will take remains to be seen.  The approach I intend to take is to produce content that I find useful.  If over time others find it useful then all the better.  Hopefully by obliging myself to produce this content I will understand my course better.  If that’s not really happening, I’ll dedicate my time to other things.

The first project that I will be undertaking on here is something that I have decided to call ‘The Law And You’.  This will be a series of posts meant to provide an introduction to the law of England & Wales.  The aim is for them to be easily understood without any prior knowledge of the legal system.  Perhaps for young people thinking of studying law, or for anyone who wants to know a bit more about the way law works.