Anglo-American law and Common Law principles

Tessabel is a Netflix-type, multimedia drama to teach Anglo-American law and Common Law principles to lawyers who did not qualify in a Common Law jurisdiction.

1,378 terms are used by the characters in the drama in their correct context, and are then explained and tested.

There are 9 chapters in the course, and each chapter is divided into about 30 sections. A section can be either an audio-visual scene, a document (e.g. contract, email, SMS message), or an audio recording (e.g. podcast, police interview or phone message).

Tessabel is written and produced by John O’Donovan who practised at the Bar in London for 8 years, and then taught in the law faculty at ESADE in Spain for fifteen years.

John O’Donovan wrote the syllabus over fifteen years, asking legal academics, practising lawyers and his own students, what knowledge was necessary in order to thrive internationally. The respondents were the best in their home jurisdictions, but described a disadvantage when dealing with Anglo-American colleagues because they had little knowledge of English law or Common Law principles. The consensus was that there was very little interest in becoming a dual-qualified lawyer, but there was a clear desire for the practical legal knowledge as used by a busy international practitioner in a Common Law jurisdiction.

The characters who deliver the terms in the knowledge database are messy individuals. Some behave well, but most would be guilty of some sort of criminal or ethical misconduct. There are murders, a kidnapping, and egregious instances of money-laundering. Users are hooked by this behaviour, as they might be hooked by the antics of the Soprano or Corleone families, and this makes the users stay the course.

Examples of the tags and explanations -

- Under the tag 'international taxation', there are 50 terms explained (for example, 'domicile', 'transfer pricing', 'permanent establishment', 'double Irish w Dutch sandwich')
- Under 'contract law', there are 77 ('liquidated damages', 'void ab initio', 'implied term')
- Under 'contract clauses', there are 19 ('force majeure', 'boilerplate', 'cooling off provisions')
- Under 'finance', there are 294 ('DCF', 'investment grade', 'to squeeze out investors')
- Under 'international trade', there are 43 ('certificate of origin', 'forex', 'tariff')
- Under 'dispute resolution', there are 165 ('consequential loss', 'liquidated damages', 'particulars of claim')
- Under 'crime', there are 99 ('beyond reasonable doubt', 'double jeopardy', 'wire fraud')
- Under 'criminal evidence', there are 40 ('direct evidence', 'hearsay evidence', 'prima facie evidence', 'admissible', 'cross-examination')
- Under 'Intellectual Property', there are 19 ('prior art', 'PCT', 'to assign', 'copyright', 'industrial design right')
- Under 'company law', there are 57 ('limited liability', 'separate legal personality’)

The testing method throughout is multiple choice questioning.

The time to complete the course is about 40 hours, which breaks down as follows -

- Chapter 1 (37 sections, 239 questions) - 5 hours
- Chapter 2 (36 sections, 257 questions) - 5 hours
- Chapter 3 (39 sections, 214 questions) - 4.5 hours
- Chapter 4 (32 sections, 165 questions) - 3 hours
- Chapter 5 (27 sections, 114 questions) - 3 hours
- Chapter 6 (26 sections, 117 questions) - 3 hours
- Chapter 7 (34 sections, 104 questions) - 2.5 hours
- Chapter 8 (25 sections, 102 questions) - 2 hours
- Chapter 9 (14 sections, 66 questions) - 2 hours

The remaining ten hours are needed to properly learn the knowledge database in order to pass the final test ‘For the World’s Best’.

‘For the World’s Best’ is a timed test of 140 questions. Users have 10 seconds to answer each question.

The requirements for the 40 points to be awarded are -
- A user will have watched or read all sections of each of the nine chapters
- A user will have at least 1,200 questions marked as correct on the website
- A user will have scored at least 75% in a timed test called ‘For the World’s Best’

If these parameters are met, the 40 points are awarded automatically by the website.