This text provides real-world case files designed to reinforce foundational legal reasoning skills. Students work through practical problems, each of which is set in the context of a different basic law school subject. Commentary throughout the text guides students toward more sophisticated comprehension of the factual and legal materials, and more nuanced legal analysis, all while introducing common forms of practice-based writing. Each chapter then takes the rules introduced in the case file and illustrates ways they might be applied to an essay examination question and multiple-choice question. Additional practice questions and suggestions for classroom exercises are included in the extensive accompanying teacher's manual.
Publisher description: This widely used book in many printings begins with answers to forty commonly asked questions of first-year law students. It specifies a six-step approach to briefing a case with specific guidelines for accomplishing each step. The process of briefing cases is then demonstrated with excellent and poor briefs of increasing complexity. Emphasis is placed initially on the techniques of briefing as an introduction to the learning of legal reasoning, the first priority of the first year of law school. In addition, the book also demonstrates the relevance of more advanced modes of legal reasoning, including positivist, pragmatic, policy oriented, natural-law and other perspectives applied in decoding and understanding cases. In its introduction of jurisprudential perspectives, Learning Legal Reasoning transcends the typical technical/positivist orientation of most first-year materials.
Legal Reasoning, Research, and Writing for International Graduate Students, Fifth Edition, helps international students understand and approach legal reasoning and writing the way law students and attorneys do in the United States. With concise and clear text, Professor Nedzel introduces the unique and important features of the American legal system and American law schools. Using clear instruction, examples, visual aids, and practice exercises, she teaches practical lawyering skills with sensitivity to the challenges of ESL students. New to the Fifth Edition: Streamlined presentation makes the material even more accessible. Chapters are short, direct, and to the point. Five chapters on reasoning and writing, including exam skills, office memos, and rewriting. Full chapters on contract drafting and scholarly writing. New flowcharts provide a concise, visual overview for each chapter. Citation coverage updated to new 21st edition of The Bluebook. Simplified examples and exercises. Three thoroughly revised chapters on legal research, including non-fee legal research and technological changes in the practice of U.S. law. Professors and student will benefit from: Comparative perspective informs readers about the unique features of American law as compared to civil law, Islamic law, and Asian traditions. Explanations of practical skills assume no former knowledge of the American legal system. U.S. law school necessary skills explained immediately: case briefing, creating a course outline, time management, reading citations, and writing answers to hypothetical exam questions. Short, lucid chapters that reiterate major points to aid comprehension. Clear introductions to writing hypothetical-based exams, legal memoranda, contract drafting and scholarly writing. An integrated approach to proper citation format, with explanation and instruction provided in context. Discussion of plagiarism and U.S. law school honor codes. Practical skill-building exercises in each chapter. Research exercises are primarily Internet-based Charts and summaries that are useful learning aids and reference tools
Language skills, study skills, argument skills and legal knowledge are vital to every law student, professional lawyer and academic. Learning Legal Skills and Reasoning discusses the main sources of English law and explains how to work with legal texts in order to construct credible legal arguments which can be applied in coursework, exams or presentations. Learning Legal Skills and Reasoning Discusses how to find and understand sources of both domestic and European Union Law Develops effective disciplined study techniques, including referencing, general reading, writing and oral skills and explains how to make good use of the university print and e-library Contains chapters on writing law essays, problem questions and examinations, and on oral skills including presentations and mediation skills Packed full of practical examples and diagrams across the range of legal skills from language and research skills to mooting and negotiation, this textbook will be invaluable to law students seeking to acquire a range of discreet legal skills in order to use them together to produce competent assessed work.
The concept of learning to ‘think like a lawyer’ is one of the cornerstones of legal education in the United States and beyond. In this book, Jeffrey Lipshaw provides a critique of the traditional views of ‘thinking like a lawyer’ or ‘pure lawyering’ aimed at lawyers, law professors, and students who want to understand lawyering beyond the traditional warrior metaphor. Drawing on his extensive experience at the intersection of real world law and business issues, Professor Lipshaw presents a sophisticated philosophical argument that the "pure lawyering" of traditional legal education is agnostic to either truth or moral value of outcomes. He demonstrates pure lawyering’s potential both for illusions of certainty and cynical instrumentalism, and the consequences of both when lawyers are called on as dealmakers, policymakers, and counsellors. This book offers an avenue for getting beyond (or unlearning) merely how to think like a lawyer. It combines legal theory, philosophy of knowledge, and doctrine with an appreciation of real-life judgment calls that multi-disciplinary lawyers are called upon to make. The book will be of great interest to scholars of legal education, legal language and reasoning as well as professors who teach both doctrine and thinking and writing skills in the first year law school curriculum; and for anyone who is interested in seeking a perspective on ‘thinking like a lawyer’ beyond the litigation arena.
Language skills,study skills, argument skills and legal knowledge are vital to every law student, professional lawyer and academic. Legal Method Reasoning offers a range of 'how to' techniques for acquiring these skills. It shows how to handle and use legal texts, how to read and write about the law, how to acquire disciplined study techniques and how to construct legal arguments. This new edition will be of value to both undergraduate and postgraduate law students.
Language skills, study skills, argument skills and legal knowledge are vital to every law student, professional lawyer and academic. Legal Method, Skills and Reasoning suggests a range of 'how-to' techniques for perfecting these academic and practical skills. It explains how to work with legal texts; how to read and write about the law; how to acquire effective disciplined study techniques; and how to construct legal arguments. Packed full of practical examples and diagrams across the range of legal skills from language and research skills to mooting and negotiation, this edition will be invaluable to law students seeking to acquire a deeper understanding of how to apply each discreet legal skill effectively. This restructured third edition is now additionally supported by a Companion Website offering a wealth of additional resources for individual and group work for both students and lecturers. For students, the Companion Website offers: workbooks for each part, containing guided practical and reflective tasks a series of ‘how-to’ exercises, which help to provide real-life legal skills examples and practice guidance on answering legal problem and essay-style questions self-test quizzes to consolidate learning for each individual legal skill. For lecturers, the Companion Website hosts: a set of PowerPoint slides of the diagrams in the text specimen seminar plans, with supplementary notes to provide support and inspiration for teaching legal skills sample legal skills assessment, and accompanying answers.
Steven Burton's AN INTRODUCTION TO LAW AND LEGAL REASONING, Second Edition continues to be an ideal learning tool for first-year law students in a variety of introductory courses including orientation programs, legal reasoning, lawyering skills, or first-year substantive courses. Written specifically for beginning law students, this concise paperback helps students gain an understanding of law and legal reasoning by emphasizing how they can use cases, rules, precedent, holding, and other elementary legal concepts to solve legal problems. Especially easy to use, The Second Edition: offers concise, lucid text gives more attention to competing, contemporary modes of analysis including Critical Legal Studies and philosophical critiques clearly delineates the structure of law as precedents, rules, principles, and policies introduces many new examples coherently organized in nine chapters, INTRODUCTION TO LAW AND LEGAL REASONING covers cases and rules, analogical and deductive legal reasoning, legal reasons and conventions, purposes, judges' and lawyers' perspectives, and legitimacy. short and affordable, this book is a good fit for orientation programs, introductory courses on legal reasoning or legal method, lawyering skills courses, or as a supplementary text in any first-year substantive course.
This primer on legal reasoning is aimed at law students and upper-level undergraduates. But it is also an original exposition of basic legal concepts that scholars and lawyers will find stimulating. It covers such topics as rules, precedent, authority, analogical reasoning, the common law, statutory interpretation, legal realism, judicial opinions, legal facts, and burden of proof. In addressing the question whether legal reasoning is distinctive, Frederick Schauer emphasizes the formality and rule-dependence of law. When taking the words of a statute seriously, when following a rule even when it does not produce the best result, when treating the fact of a past decision as a reason for making the same decision again, or when relying on authoritative sources, the law embodies values other than simply that of making the best decision for the particular occasion or dispute. In thus pursuing goals of stability, predictability, and constraint on the idiosyncrasies of individual decision-makers, the law employs forms of reasoning that may not be unique to it but are far more dominant in legal decision-making than elsewhere. Schauer’s analysis of what makes legal reasoning special will be a valuable guide for students while also presenting a challenge to a wide range of current academic theories.
Legal Reasoning and Objective Writing: A Comprehensive Approach is a textbook for the objective writing segment of a first-year legal writing class, written by two professors who have collaborated for many years, and who between them have over 50 years of experience teaching legal analysis and writing. The book, which is written in a conversational manner to engage students and put them at ease so that they grasp difficult concepts easily, uses a variety of short examples throughout the chapters as well as sample documents in the appendices with comprehensive annotations keyed to relevant portions of the book. Each chapter and accompanying optional closed-memo problem provide students with a sophisticated yet concrete step-by-step method to learn the analytical, organizational, and presentational skills necessary to convey legal analysis effectively. The accompanying optional introductory problem and related assignment materials use a flipped-class approach to guide students through the memo project independently, allowing teachers to adapt the problem to fit a variety of teaching sequences.
