Informatics and the Foundations of Legal Reasoning

Informatics and the Foundations of Legal Reasoning

Author: Z. Bankowski

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-09

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9401585318

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Informatics and the Foundations of Legal Reasoning represents a close collaboration between a wide range of disciplines and countries. Fourteen papers, together with a long analytical introduction by the editors, were selected from the contributions of legal theorists, computer scientists, philosophers and logicians who were members of an International Working Group supported by the European Commission. The Group was mandated to work towards determining how far the law is amenable to formal modeling, and in what ways computers might assist legal thinking and practice. The book is the result of discussions held by the Group over two and half years. It will help students and researchers from different backgrounds to focus on a common set of topics of increasing general interest. It embodies the results of work in progress and suggests many issues for further discussion. A stimulating text for undergraduate and graduate courses in law, philosophy and computer science departments, as well as for those interested in the place of computers in legal practice, especially at the international level.


Legal Argumentation and Evidence

Legal Argumentation and Evidence

Author: Douglas Walton

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2010-11-01

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9780271048338

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A leading expert in informal logic, Douglas Walton turns his attention in this new book to how reasoning operates in trials and other legal contexts, with special emphasis on the law of evidence. The new model he develops, drawing on methods of argumentation theory that are gaining wide acceptance in computing fields like artificial intelligence, can be used to identify, analyze, and evaluate specific types of legal argument. In contrast with approaches that rely on deductive and inductive logic and rule out many common types of argument as fallacious, Walton&’s aim is to provide a more expansive view of what can be considered &"reasonable&" in legal argument when it is construed as a dynamic, rule-governed, and goal-directed conversation. This dialogical model gives new meaning to the key notions of relevance and probative weight, with the latter analyzed in terms of pragmatic criteria for what constitutes plausible evidence rather than truth.


Handbook of Legal Reasoning and Argumentation

Handbook of Legal Reasoning and Argumentation

Author: Giorgio Bongiovanni

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-07-02

Total Pages: 773

ISBN-13: 9048194520

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This handbook addresses legal reasoning and argumentation from a logical, philosophical and legal perspective. The main forms of legal reasoning and argumentation are covered in an exhaustive and critical fashion, and are analysed in connection with more general types (and problems) of reasoning. Accordingly, the subject matter of the handbook divides in three parts. The first one introduces and discusses the basic concepts of practical reasoning. The second one discusses the general structures and procedures of reasoning and argumentation that are relevant to legal discourse. The third one looks at their instantiations and developments of these aspects of argumentation as they are put to work in the law, in different areas and applications of legal reasoning.


A Primer on Legal Reasoning

A Primer on Legal Reasoning

Author: Michael Evan Gold

Publisher: ILR Press

Published: 2018-11-15

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1501728601

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After years of teaching law courses to undergraduate, graduate, and law students, Michael Evan Gold has come to believe that the traditional way of teaching – analysis, explanation, and example – is superior to the Socratic Method for students at the outset of their studies. In courses taught Socratically, even the most gifted students can struggle, and many others are lost in a fog for months. Gold offers a meta approach to teaching legal reasoning, bringing the process of argumentation to the fore. Using examples both from the law and from daily life, Gold's book will help undergraduates and first-year law students to understand legal discourse. The book analyzes and illustrates the principles of legal reasoning, such as logical deduction, analogies and distinctions, and application of law to fact, and even solves the mystery of how to spot an issue. In Gold's experience, students who understand the principles of analytical thinking are able to understand arguments, to evaluate and reply to them, and ultimately to construct sound arguments of their own.


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.


Legal Argument

Legal Argument

Author: James A. Gardner

Publisher: LexisNexis/Matthew Bender

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13:

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Legal Argument: The Structure and Language of Effective Advocacy is a full-featured guide designed primarily for law students in research, writing, analysis and trial advocacy classes and moot court programs. Inside you'll find detailed explanations of how lawyers construct legal arguments and practical guidelines to the process of molding the raw materials of litigation--cases, statutes, testimony, documents, common sense--into instruments of persuasive advocacy. You'll also find writing guidelines that show you how to present a well-constructed legal argument in writing in a way that legal decision makers will find persuasive. The centerpiece of this indispensable work is its syllogism-based step-by-step method, designed to walk the advocate through the process of crafting a winning argument. Intuitive organization presents the material in five parts: Part I sets out a general methodology for constructing legal arguments. Part II focuses more closely on the construction of persuasive, well-grounded legal premises, and covers the effective integration of legal doctrine and evidence into the argument's structure. Part III shows how to put the method to work by giving two detailed examples of the construction of complete legal arguments from scratch. Part IV provides a detailed protocol for reducing well-constructed legal arguments to written form, along with a concrete illustration of that process. It also provides concrete advice on how to recognize and avoid a host of common mistakes in the written presentation of legal arguments. Part V moves from the basics into more advanced techniques of persuasive legal argument, including rhetorical tactics like framing and emphasis, how to respond to arguments, maintaining professionalism in advocacy, and the ethical limits of argument.


The Evidential Foundations of Probabilistic Reasoning

The Evidential Foundations of Probabilistic Reasoning

Author: David A. Schum

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 572

ISBN-13: 9780810118218

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In this work Schum develops a general theory of evidence as it is understood and applied across a broad range of disciplines and practical undertakings. He include insights from law, philosophy, logic, probability, semiotics, artificial intelligence, psychology and history.


On Law and Legal Reasoning

On Law and Legal Reasoning

Author: Fernando Atria

Publisher: Hart Publishing

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

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This book seeks to examine the relations that obtain between law and a theory of law and legal reasoning and a theory of legal reasoning.