How Paper 1 works — and how to use this course
What this paper tests
Paper 1 covers civil litigation from first consultation to trial, plus contract drafting: the content of the LPC's modules on drafting pleadings and motions, civil procedure and trial advocacy, delictual and personal-injury claims, and drafting of contracts and basic business transactions.
The new exam is competency-based. That phrase matters: the examiners are not testing whether you can recite rules, but whether you can *do the work* — take a set of facts, find the cause of action, choose the right procedure, and draft something a court would accept. Every lesson in this course follows that logic.
The one mantra that runs through everything
The syllabus repeats it deliberately: facts first, law later. Get all the facts, sequence them, analyse them — and only then contextualise the matter in law. Candidates who reach for a precedent or a legal label before mastering the facts lose marks in the exam and cases in practice.
How to use this course
- Work through the lessons in order — each builds on the last.
- Do the self-test questions before moving on; they mirror how the exam asks things.
- Draft the exercises by hand, without precedents. The syllabus instructs trainers to demand exactly that, and the exam rewards it.
- Book a private session on any lesson you can't crack — that's what we're here for.
Staying current
The syllabus expects candidates writing exams to be up to date with Constitutional Court and SCA decisions to within seven calendar days of the most recent decision. Build a weekly 30-minute case-law scan into your routine now.