How to Teach Lawyers, Judges, and Law Students Critical Thinking


Book Description

Critical thinking is essential for lawyers, judges, and law students. Yet law schools have never systematically taught critical thinking to their students. The main purpose of this book is to help law professors teach lawyers, judges, and law students how to become critical thinkers. It first explains critical thinking to professors, and, then, it shows how they can teach this knowledge to students. Lawyers, judges, and law students can also use this book to teach themselves critical thinking.Chapter One introduces the reader to the need for critical thinking in the law, and it will give two methods of evaluating how critical thinking works within legal education. Chapter Two helps the reader understand the basics of critical thinking. Most scholars think that critical thinking is domain specific, so Chapter Three presents the domain of the law. Chapter Four applies critical thinking basics to law's domain, and it shows how to teach critical thinking to lawyers, judges, and law students. Chapter Five shows how critical thinking processes can improve the use of the Socratic method in legal education. Chapter Six discusses how critical thinking can make law professors better teachers. Chapter Seven demonstrates how critical thinking can produce better legal writing professors. Chapter Eight focuses on judges and critical thinking. The final chapter brings everything together and highlights the most important aspects of teaching critical thinking to lawyers, judges, and law students. Two appendices contain sample Socratic dialogues that employ critical thinking. I have included exercises and problems on critical thinking throughout the book.




Logic for Lawyers


Book Description




Thinking Like a Lawyer


Book Description

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 Literacy and Communication


Book Description

"This book is designed expressly for students in Juris Master, Master of Jurisprudence, and Master of Legal Studies programs. This concise paperback empowers students whose professional background is outside of law with a foundational understanding of the United States legal system and insight into what lawyers do. The book covers key concepts, including: Understanding the roles of legislatures, agencies, and courts; Recognizing and using basic legal vocabulary in context; Reading a variety of legal documents efficiently and effectively; Writing law-related reports and correspondence; Reading and understanding the function of primary sources of law, including statutes, regulations, and cases; Understanding the basic elements of a contract and participating in contracting processes; and Recognizing and avoiding the unauthorized practice of law"--




Think Like a Lawyer


Book Description

This book's purpose is to better prepare law students and lawyers for the practice of law by providing them with a firm foundation in legal reasoning, showing them how to apply legal reasoning skills to facts, and teaching them legal problem solving. I will do this by focusing explicitly on the different types of legal reasoning and the types of miniskills needed to develop the different types of legal reasoning.The chapters in this book will present the different types of legal reasoning, the miniskills that are related to the different types of legal reasoning, and how to use these miniskills in combination. Chapter One discusses the five types of legal reasoning. Chapter Two will teach you how to be a critical and engaged reader and analyze cases, skills that are needed before you can learn the other miniskills in detail. Chapter Three concerns reasoning by analogy, which involves showing how your case is like a precedent case. Chapter Four examines rule-based reasoning, and how to apply rules to facts. Chapter Five involves synthesizing cases into rules, which is an important skill in establishing the law. Chapter Six investigates statutory interpretation. Chapter Seven brings the prior chapters together, by demonstrating how the different types of legal reasoning relate to the small-scale paradigm (how to organize a simple analysis). Chapter Eight fills in this paradigm by examining how to respond to opposing arguments and distinguish cases. Finally, Chapter Nine serves as a capstone to this book with its presentation of advanced problem solving and creative thinking. The appendices cover how the American legal system developed and canons of statutory construction.One of the purposes of this book is to allow law students to learn legal skills independently. I want students to be able to get immediate feedback on their learning. Consequently, I have put answers to the exercises at the end of each chapter.




Educating Lawyers


Book Description

The Challenge of Educating Lawyers "This volume, under the presidency of Lee Shulman, is intended primarily to foster appreciation for what legal education does at its best. We want to encourage more informed scholarship and imaginative dialogue about teaching and learning for the law at all organizational levels: in individual law schools, in the academic associations, in the profession itself. We also believe our findings will be of interest within the academy beyond the professional schools, as well as among that public concerned with higher education and the promotion of professional excellence." --From the Introduction "Educating Lawyers is no doubt the best work on the analysis and reform of legal education that I have ever read. There is a call for deep changes in the way law is taught, and I believe that it will be a landmark in the history of legal education." --Bryant G. Garth, dean and professor of law, Southwestern Law School and former director of the American Bar Foundation "Educating Lawyers succeeds admirably in describing the educational programs at virtually every American law school. The call for the integration of the three apprenticeships seems to me exactly what is needed to make legal education more 'professional,' to prepare law students better for the practice of law, and to address societal expectations of lawyers." --Stephen Wizner, dean of faculty, William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law, Yale Law School







Getting to Maybe


Book Description

Professors Fischl and Paul explain law school exams in ways no one has before, all with an eye toward improving the reader’s performance. The book begins by describing the difference between educational cultures that praise students for “right answers,” and the law school culture that rewards nuanced analysis of ambiguous situations in which more than one approach may be correct. Enormous care is devoted to explaining precisely how and why legal analysis frequently produces such perplexing situations. But the authors don’t stop with mere description. Instead, Getting to Maybe teaches how to excel on law school exams by showing the reader how legal analysis can be brought to bear on examination problems. The book contains hints on studying and preparation that go well beyond conventional advice. The authors also illustrate how to argue both sides of a legal issue without appearing wishy-washy or indecisive. Above all, the book explains why exam questions may generate feelings of uncertainty or doubt about correct legal outcomes and how the student can turn these feelings to his or her advantage. In sum, although the authors believe that no exam guide can substitute for a firm grasp of substantive material, readers who devote the necessary time to learning the law will find this book an invaluable guide to translating learning into better exam performance. “This book should revolutionize the ordeal of studying for law school exams… Its clear, insightful, fun to read, and right on the money.” — Duncan Kennedy, Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence, Harvard Law School “Finally a study aid that takes legal theory seriously… Students who master these lessons will surely write better exams. More importantly, they will also learn to be better lawyers.” — Steven L. Winter, Brooklyn Law School “If you can't spot a 'fork in the law' or a 'fork in the facts' in an exam hypothetical, get this book. If you don’t know how to play 'Czar of the Universe' on law school exams (or why), get this book. And if you do want to learn how to think like a lawyer—a good one—get this book. It's, quite simply, stone cold brilliant.” — Pierre Schlag, University of Colorado School of Law (Law Preview Book Review on The Princeton Review website) Attend a Getting to Maybe seminar! Click here for more information.




Model Rules of Professional Conduct


Book Description

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.




The Lawyer-Judge Bias in the American Legal System


Book Description

Virtually all American judges are former lawyers. This book argues that these lawyer-judges instinctively favor the legal profession in their decisions and that this bias has far-reaching and deleterious effects on American law. There are many reasons for this bias, some obvious and some subtle. Fundamentally, it occurs because - regardless of political affiliation, race, or gender - every American judge shares a single characteristic: a career as a lawyer. This shared background results in the lawyer-judge bias. The book begins with a theoretical explanation of why judges naturally favor the interests of the legal profession and follows with case law examples from diverse areas, including legal ethics, criminal procedure, constitutional law, torts, evidence, and the business of law. The book closes with a case study of the Enron fiasco, an argument that the lawyer-judge bias has contributed to the overweening complexity of American law, and suggests some possible solutions.