How to critically analyse in a law essay (and stop being descriptive)

A very common issue: you spend 500-700 words explaining a doctrine or line of cases, and then you run out of space and time for evaluation. This makes for an unbalanced essay, which is even more punishing because evaluation is where the top marks are.

The problem is not the description itself, which of course is essential to any essay. The problem comes when that description is separated from the evaluation. Only explanations of the law which have a clear argumentative purpose will score you first-class grades.

The solution starts from the beginning of your essay, in your introduction.

Take a question like: 'Has the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 improved the law?'

A strong introduction might argue, at its core, that: "The Act leaves the law in an unsatisfactory state because it undermines doctrinal coherence and fails to resolve key preexisting issues."

Then look at how I start the body of my essay, where I will describe the concept of consideration and the changes legislation has or has not brought about:

"The relaxation of consideration for which the C(RTP)A is responsible is unsatisfactory because it cannot be reconciled with the orthodox principles of contract law. On the traditional understanding, the doctrine of consideration establishes that…"

And only then, after reminding the examiner of my argument, do I go on to describe. This sets out the framework within which all your description will be analytically useful.

So instead of explaining first and analysing later: advance your claim, explain what's needed to support it, and advance your claim again.

Exam tip

Before including anything, ask yourself, "Is this helping me answer the question? Does it advance my argument?"

• If not: cut it
• If yes, tell the examiner why explicitly

That's how you avoid being overly descriptive.

But what about more complex questions?

What if the topic genuinely requires careful explanation? The same principle applies.

Take a question like: 'What is meant by the "democratic deficit" in the EU? Do you consider that it is a problem?'

A common approach is to split the essay by first defining the concept in response to the first half of the question, and then evaluating it to properly answer the second half. But this usually leads to long sections of description and rushed, ineffectual analysis.

The key to achieve first class grades is to realise that many issues that seem descriptive actually present opportunities for evaluation. To make the most of them you must be analytical from the start.

Take our two-part question: "democratic deficit" doesn't have a single agreed meaning. Different authors use it to refer to different specific criticisms (institutional design, legitimacy, accountability, etc) and from different political premises (input democracy, output democracy, etc). You cannot ignore this to save time, and you cannot simply list these differences. Instead, use this as substance for first-class analysis.

Again, frame your answer in the introduction, where one of your arguments might be that: "the claim about the existence of a democratic deficit in the EU encompasses different criticisms, but they can all largely be understood to stem from the same core concern."

Then you can begin the body of your essay with that claim, explain the different criticisms under the label, and use this explanation to show that they are all about one issue: namely "that the relations of authority which the EU creates through its decision-making, and according to which the EU's citizens organise their lives in common, do not depend as much as they should on those citizens' wishes and on democratic values more generally." (You can of course make a different argument: that these different criticisms are wrongly grouped under one label, which undermines accurate and clear debate and prevents addressing the core issues at stake.)

The crucial point is that now your explanation becomes analytical: you're not just describing views. Instead, you're connecting them, and you're using them to advance an argument.

So, to score first-class grades, instead of asking yourself: "what do these authors say?", ask "what do these authors' different views reveal about the issue the question is getting at?"

Remember that most of your essays don't lose marks on knowledge. They lose marks because you don't use that knowledge effectively.

Not sure whether your own writing is description or analysis? I give line-by-line feedback on law essays that flags exactly which passages are pulling their weight and which aren't.