International commercial lawyers are often familiar with some of the English legal terminology and statutory provisions relating to their own specialist areas of legal practice such as, for example, banking, corporate taxation, media, employment or shipping

However, this familiarity is not always supported by a wider general legal vocabulary or any real knowledge or understanding of the key elements and principles of English Common Law, the “building blocks” of the legal system.

Without a wide comprehensive knowledge of English legal terminology, how it is used, and how it forms an essential part of the general law, it is not possible to fully understand English statutes.

Professor Hein Kötz of the University of Hamburg makes a similar point in his book: “ An Introduction to Comparative Law” (< Einführung in die Rechtsvergleichung>)*:

"As yet there is no comprehensive codification of family law or the law of succession or the law of contract or the law of tort. For this purpose England still prefers special statutes which deal with particular questions, such as the law of matrimonial property, intestate succession, adoption, illegitimacy, administration of estates, or credit transactions, and even these statutes can be understood only against the background of the unwritten Common Law, for they use the concepts and categories and invariably presuppose the rights and doctrines which have been developed by the courts."

Lexacom courses provide clear comprehensive coverage of the essential elements of the Common Law system, its terminology, and its culture.

They give an insight into the way English lawyers and judges approach legal problems, and how this differs from the Civil Code approach.

Lexacom courses include substantive law, terminology, drafting and negotiating.

*”An Introduction to Comparative Law” by K. Zweigert and H. Kötz: 3rd Edition published 1998 © Oxford University Press and J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) by permission of Oxford University Press. This English edition is translated by Tony Weir, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.