English for the legal profession - Lelija Sočanac, Miljen Matijašević, Marijana Javornik Čubrić, Snježana Husinec, Irena Horvatić Bilić

PREDGOVOR / PREFACE

The textbook English for the Legal Profession has been prepared to meet the changing needs of law students, taking into account their increasing language proficiency resulting from the spread of English as a global language and the great impact of new media. It is greatly indebted to its predecessor, English for Lawyers by D. Vićan, Z. Pavić and B. Smerdel, which was a groundbreaking work at the time when English for lawyers was first introduced as a university course at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, and teaching materials were almost non-existent. Although the aim of the two textbooks is similar, to acquaint students with legal English as an indispensable tool for modern Croatian lawyers, English for the Legal Profession offers new materials and approaches. The book consists of four modules, each corresponding to one semester: 1. Introduction to Law; 2. Anglo-American Legal Systems; 3. Branches of English Law; and 4. Introduction to International and Supranational Law. Each module consists of several units devoted to different related topics. Each unit is divided into two (exceptionally, three) parts.

The first part provides an introduction to a topic, while the second comprises an extract from an original legal text. In this way students can get acquainted with basic legal terms associated with a particular area of law, as well as with the structure and style of various legal text types, ranging from legislation, judicial decisions and international treaties, to private documents, scholarly articles and course descriptions., The texts are accompanied by a range of different exercises enabling better comprehension of a topic and the appropriate use of legal terms. Students are strongly encouraged to take an active part in class by preparing presentations and taking part in discussions, which requires doing additional research on their own. Moreover, students are expected to draw parallels between the legal systems discussed in individual chapters and the Croatian legal system. In order to provide guidelines for preparing student presentations and seminar papers, sections on presentation skills and academic writing have been included. As supplements to facilitate understanding of English legal terms, a bilingual English-Croatian glossary of legal terms used in the book, and a monolingual English glossary explaining key legal concepts, have been included.

The textbook is primarily aimed at first and second year law students, and it can be used as additional teaching material for students of public administration, tax law and social work, as well as teaching material for any course of legal English. It can also be useful for legal practitioners and legal translators. The authors of the book are members of the Department of Foreign Languages at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb.