Thinking Like a Lawyer
Thinking Like a Lawyer

Author: Frederick F. Schauer

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-04-27

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0674032705

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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.

The American Legal System and Civic Engagement
The American Legal System and Civic Engagement

Author: Kenneth Manaster

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-09-12

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1137342331

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In recent years there has been a widely-recognized and serious lack of rational and civil public discussion about current issues. In The American Legal System and Civic Engagement, Manaster asserts that ordinary citizens can form their opinions on public issues more intelligently, confidently, and responsibly if they have some guidance on how to do it. Drawing from the tools and traditions of the American legal system, he offers guidance to aid citizens in understanding public issues and participating in the type of responsible public debate these challenging issues deserve. From analyzing the influence of the media in informing the public, to examining the role of the citizen as a juror, The American Legal System and Civic Engagement is a practical and informative guide to how Americans can better perform the civic duty that modern democracy requires.

Demystifying Legal Reasoning
Demystifying Legal Reasoning

Author: Larry Alexander

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-06-16

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 113947247X

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Demystifying Legal Reasoning defends the proposition that there are no special forms of reasoning peculiar to law. Legal decision makers engage in the same modes of reasoning that all actors use in deciding what to do: open-ended moral reasoning, empirical reasoning, and deduction from authoritative rules. This book addresses common law reasoning when prior judicial decisions determine the law, and interpretation of texts. In both areas, the popular view that legal decision makers practise special forms of reasoning is false.

Beyond Legal Reasoning: a Critique of Pure Lawyering
Beyond Legal Reasoning: a Critique of Pure Lawyering

Author: Jeffrey Lipshaw

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-27

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1315410796

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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.

The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning
The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning

Author: Keith J. Holyoak

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-04-18

Total Pages: 880

ISBN-13: 9780521824170

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The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning is the first comprehensive and authoritative handbook covering all the core topics of the field of thinking and reasoning. Written by the foremost experts from cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience, individual chapters summarize basic concepts and findings for a major topic, sketch its history, and give a sense of the directions in which research is currently heading. The volume also includes work related to developmental, social and clinical psychology, philosophy, economics, artificial intelligence, linguistics, education, law, and medicine. Scholars and students in all these fields and others will find this to be a valuable collection.

Logic for Lawyers
Logic for Lawyers

Author: Ruggero J. Aldisert

Publisher:

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13:

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This book tackles the basics of legal reasoning in twelve chapters, including the principles of classic logic, deductive and inductive reasoning, application of the Socratic method to legal reasoning, and formal and material fallacies.

An Introduction to Law and Legal Reasoning
An Introduction to Law and Legal Reasoning

Author: Steven J. Burton

Publisher: Aspen Publishers

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13:

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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.