How to Study Civil Procedural Law (Alone)

With the recent start of my remote courses, some things became clearer in my head about how to study procedural law. In fact, I think this approach holds true for any kind of dogmatic legal matter.

The student's first goal should be to become able to read the law (albeit with some gaps in understanding). And he must always remember that this is not an easy task . Naturally, to achieve this first goal, the student must know the topic he is going to study and identify the respective articles in the Code.

If you have any difficulty reading the law, you should look for support material. The main support material is a manual. If you want to deepen a subject, then it will be possible to look for a course with several volumes or even a monograph just to take care of it.

Next, my recommendation is that the student highlight in the law the flows, lists and concepts of his reading.

I think this division between flows, lists and concepts is fundamental, as it helps to fragment the student's problem. Let's look at an example of the Code of Civil Procedure, separated into four parts:

"Article 523. (1) [In the case of a judgment in a certain amount, or already fixed in liquidation, and in the case of a decision on an undisputed portion], (2) [definitive compliance with the judgment shall be made at the request of the party seeking enforcement], (3) [the party against whom enforcement is sought shall be summoned to pay the debt, within fifteen (15) days], (4) [plus costs, if any.]"

The flow is to summon the debtor to pay within 15 days (3) . That's the main part. In addition, there is a list of requirements (1), a mode indication (2) and a mode add-on (4). I think that these lists are attributes of the flow: requirements, modes, consequences, particularities, etc. Concepts, on the other hand, are not in this mechanics, referring to the semantics of certain words, whose meaning is normatively defined, for example: liquidation, definitive compliance, judgment, etc.

By this I mean that, when it comes to procedural law, the reader must always seek to understand the flow. Lists are important, but they cannot take the protagonism out of the flow. And the concepts, in fact, are totally static and do not interfere with the dynamics of the flow. Usually a concept will have a title reserved for itself in the law, so that its presence in a flow is a kind of reference (i.e., a shortcut) to another point in the law.

How can the teacher help the student on this journey?

The teacher can make a mind map, which will be useful to make a "list of lists". But the mind map doesn't have a good representation of flow, which would be better noticed through a flowchart. Preparing flowcharts is more difficult and is generally not part of our legal culture. This ends up generating confusion, as people do not separate well what is a list and what is a flow.

In turn, the explanation of the concepts should be made as a footnote in the description of the flow. In my view, one problem is that our legal culture places emphasis on conceptual descriptions, especially at the beginning of law school - which is insufficient to understand the flows of procedural matters.

So my advice is that the student try to read the law and, with the help of these classifications, identify what is the gap that exists in his understanding. If a concept is missing, look for the concept. If you missed understanding the flow thread, try to understand the previous flows or the parallel flows. At least the student will have a good intuition of what to look for.

By going back and forth in the law, seeking support in doctrine (when necessary), the student advances in the understanding of the subject. What seems to me to be a trap is to let the student read the law as if reading any kind of prose. The risk of misunderstanding is high, and without the tools I have described, understanding procedural law can become even more difficult.