Module Breakdown – Family and Welfare Law

Welcome to another module breakdown blog post! So far, I have done 12 posts in this little series on my blog. Essentially, I break down each module and look at it in detail so if you are doing this module, or something very similar, then you know what to expect!

You can find my previous module breakdown posts here:

Year 1 Modules

• Power, Freedom and the State
• Contract Law
• Legal System of England and Wales
• Legal Skills
• Britain: From Blitz to Brexit
• Public Law

Year 2 Modules

• Social and Political Research
• EU law
• Equity and Trusts
• Tort Law
• Criminal Law
• 20th Century Ideas and Movements

This module breakdown post is on Family and Welfare Law. Without further ado, let’s get to it!

Content

Family and Welfare Law was an optional module for me. I knew I wanted to take this since I started my degree back in 2021. The content of this module looked at all things related to the law concerning families. This included divorce, marriages, domestic violence protection, as well as cohabitation disputes. What was interesting about the latter was this went into Trusts Law. This is because cohabitation disputes are not protected under family law. This is under criticism and changes have been called for.

The welfare side of things mainly concerned children. We looked at the rights of children, how they are protected, disputes concerning children etc. We also looked briefly at how vulnerable adults are protected. This concerned the elderly, mental health law, homelessness etc. It was really interesting.

Lectures/Seminars

I should say now that because this is an optional module, there were no tutorials or seminars. The cohort is a lot smaller, so essentially these lectures were our seminars. In fact, they are referred to as seminars.

At the start of the semester, we had one seminar a week. This was two hours long, and full of discussion. We were encouraged to give our own opinions, and I feel like this really helped with preparation for our assignment and exam. After reading week though, which is halfway through the semester, we had two seminars a week. Again, these were two hours long.

Assignments

Like the majority of my modules, I had an essay assignment and exam for this module. The essay was worth 40%, and was 3000 words long. This essay was on cohabitation disputes, and whether the law as it stands is acceptable or whether reforms are needed. I found it really interesting.

The exam was worth 60% of the module, and was two hours long. We had two sections, with one being an essay section and one being a problem question section. There were three questions in each section, and we had to pick 1, meaning we answered two.

Overall Thoughts

Overall, I really enjoyed family law. It was by far my favourite module in semester one. I loved my lecturer and how passionate she was about the module. The content was really interesting, and I like that some of it linked to what I want to pursue as a career.

And that’s it! Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read this post and I will see you soon for another one!

Beth