Dr. Stephen Swann

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In Winter Semester 2025/26 I am offering the following courses: 

British Legal Systems (248132) 

Mon. 14:00 - 16:00 (HS 8)

This course provides an introduction to the legal systems of the British Islands and most especially English law. Besides presenting some core English legal vocabulary in context, the lectures will highlight points of (perceived) difference between legal systems - within English-speaking jurisdictions as well as in the contrast of the common law legal family with codified civil law. A main focus of the course is on the legal institutions, taking in their historical development, structures and current practice. The course aims to provide students with insight into the origin and development of the case law method, its practical operation in the modern law, and its impact on legislative law-making and legal discourse in legal systems shaped by English law. A selective look at some aspects of substantive law, including the law of remedies, will round off the course in illustrating points of contrast, drawing attention to distinctive legal terms and structures, and confirming the enduring legacy of a peculiar legal history.

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Common Law Legal Sources (248133)

Wed. 12:00 - 14:00 (SR 122)

This course aims to provide a grounding in the fundamentals of finding, interpreting, applying, and citing the main sources of law in common law jurisdictions. The focus of the material is on the English legal system, but reference will be made to both other common law systems and closely connected mixed legal systems. Supported by practical exercises enabling students to 'learn by doing', the course is intended to equip participants with the skills needed to tackle mainstream legal research in Anglo-American legal systems, to evaluate and synthesise various forms of legal material and to 'write up the law' (in particular, using OSCOLA). In the first half of the course the focus is on legislation and case law. The second half of the course looks at works of authority, the proposals of law reform bodies, restatements, and other key texts, which often contribute to defining or re-defining the law.

Besides developing practical skills in using legal material in anglophone legal systems, the course assists participants in gaining insight into different methods and styles of law-making – both in contrast to civilian legal systems and (in sometimes nuanced ways) as between the common law (and mixed) systems under consideration. The wide-ranging review of the main sources of law and how they function brings to light choices in the legal system about the constitutional relationship of the judiciary to the legislature, affinity to other legal systems, systematisation of the law, and its accessibility and usability. Time permitting, the course concludes with a review of techniques of judicial reasoning, which plays such a pivotal role in practice in fixing the boundaries of judge-led legal innovation.

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Interests in Goods (248134)

Thu. 16:00 - 18:00 (SR 120)

This course, which straddles various sub-fields of the civil and commercial law of obligations and property, takes a broad look at interests in goods in English law – what forms such property rights take and how they are created or transferred. Initial lectures consider what (and in which circumstances) animate and inanimate things are recognised as 'goods' before switching focus to possession, rights to possession, and their protection by means of rules of tortious liability. Students will gain insight into how this arrangement of private law has given it a shape distinctively different from civilian systems driven by a more abstract ownership 'motor'. Material in this part will take in bailment and questions of the proprietary effect of hire.

For the middle bulk of the course attention will turn to the main mechanisms by which property interests in goods may be acquired. Besides sale of goods – the commercially and statistically most important pillar of this field of property law – this part of the course will review the law on gifts, finding, and mixing.

Finally, the course will consider pledges of goods and other mechanisms by which possessory or proprietary security rights over goods may be created.

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Transactions in English Private Law (248135)

Fri. 10:00 - 12:00 Uhr (SR 120)

This course considers selected aspects of the law affecting core transactions in the English law governing property transfers, in particular contracts for the sale of land, deeds and other instruments of conveyance, declarations of trusts, and wills. The predominant focus of the lectures is the safeguarding and realisation of the 'real' intention of the disponor in gratuitous transactions.

Lectures will explore how apparently trivial matters, such as requirements of form, have generated doctrinal complexity and exposed competing policy conceptions of how the law should support owners in arranging dispositions of their property. Time permitting, the course will touch upon elements of the law relating to interpretation and vitiation of consent to transactions.

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In Summer Semester 2026 I plan to offer the following courses:

• British Constitutional Law
• Introduction to Property Law
• English Criminal Law
• Property in Law and Theory (Seminar, 5 ECTS)

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In Winter Semester 2026/27 I plan to offer the following courses:

• British Legal Systems
• Judges, Juries, and Lawyers
• English Land Law
• Corporations and Associations

English_law mailing list

Information about academic legal events in English is distributed from to time via the Listserv mailing list "english_law". Interested students can enrol themselves on the mailing list via the infomation page for the mailing list.

For the information page for "english_law"  >>External link