Evidence or Family

darragh666

I need to choose which of these to study,any suggestions or insight?

dee8839

IMO Evidence would be the better choice, because it leaves your options open career path wise later. Family law isn't a vital part of Blackhall or Kings Inns entrance exams whereas Evidence is needed for Kings Inns.

However, I found Family law very interesting, so if you are sure of your career path and it doesn't mean studying for the bar, I would say that Family is the more interesting subject of the two.

Tom Young

Family is a pre-req as is Evidence for the Inns. Just so you know.

CantGetNoSleep

Tom Young wrote: »

Family is a pre-req as is Evidence for the Inns. Just so you know.

Family is not a requirement

http://www.kingsinns.ie/website/prospective_students/degree/degree.htm

Reloc8

yeah I think it changed for October 2010 - didn't it use to be pre-requisite ? On the other hand I could well be wrong. So there's something for everybody.

Tom Young

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

Family is not a requirement

http://www.kingsinns.ie/website/prospective_students/degree/degree.htm

Having sat it a few years ago, I can say having undertaken a course in Family as part of your undergrad degree used to be a prerequisite.

It was not a core subject for the exam but you did have to have undertaken a course in it as part of your undergrad, degree or approved Diploma. You'd want to make sure its not lurking in the modifying undergrad degree requirements rather then core exam subjects for entry, there is a difference discrete as it may be or seem.

Tom

Sangre

It wasn't a requirement as far back as 2003 anyway. I know plenty of young BLs who haven't done it.

Eyespy

I studied Evidence but chose not to study Family during my degree so can only tell you what I thought of evidence. It's a fairly tough module but it was pretty interesting. There is a multitude of books available on the subject, Cannon & Nelligan have a book as does John Healy and the best of them all in my opinion, Declan McGrath. McGrath's book is fairly dated though as it's 2003 but he has laid solid foundations there. You should really check this out as your core text if you study Evidence. Neil von Dookum has a nutshell AFAIR so you're blessed with a good clutch of books and I found Andrew Choo brilliant for England and other jurisdictions.

One of the reasons I chose not to study Family was I'm abysmal with casenames and had a bit of trouble with land and equity in relation to family land and equitable ownership as I could remember the facts of the case but the names, pfft! And that was in class C v C, McC v McC, W v W and a whole lot more. I'm only aware of two of the books out there Jim Nestor and Geoffrey Shannon but there is a book by Shatter as well.

Maybe the best thing you could do is get one or two editions of the annual review of Irish Law, the 2006 and 2007 editions and read both Evidence and Family sections just to see which one hits you, so to speak. There's a huge section on both and it covers all the updates in the areas for the year so you get a good idea on what's happening within the subject.

They are both good subjects and I probably would have studied Family if I didn't have such a cottonwool brain. Hope you find the subject that's right for you. Best of luck in it.