What is thinking like a lawyer? It means employing logic to construct arguments.

A person familiar with the basics of logical thinking is more likely to argue effectively than one who is not. Prospective lawyers should make themselves familiar with the fundamentals of deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is based on the act of proving a conclusion by means of two other propositions.

To shape a legal issue in the form of a syllogism, begin by stating the general rule of law that governs your case as your major premise. Then, in your next statement, the minor premise, describe the key facts of the legal problem at hand. Finally, draw your conclusion by examining how the major premise about the law applies to the minor premise about the facts. You must thoroughly research the law's nooks and

Deduction is reasoning in which a conclusion is compelled by known facts. An idea of the basic structure of deductive arguments: If A and B are true, then C also must be true. The form of deductive reasoning that is common in most judicial opinions and briefs is syllogism - a label attach to any argument in which a conclusion is inferred from two premises. Example: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. The syllogism's three parts are called the major

crannies before you can confidently state your major premise. And you must become sufficiently knowledgeable about your case to reduce key facts to a brief yet accurate synopsis. If you find yourself having trouble organizing a brief or memo, try shoehorning your argument into this generic model, which is based on the argument made by prosecutors in nearly every criminal case: Major premise: [Doing something] [violates the law.] Minor premise: [ The defendant] [did something.] Conclusion: [The defendant] [violated the law.] The prosecutor's model can serve as a useful template for

premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion. The major premise states a broad and generally applicable truth. Ex. "All men are mortal." The minor premise states a specific and usually more narrowly applicable fact: "Socrates is a man." The conclusion draws upon these premises and offers a new insight that is known to be true based on the premises: "Socrates is mortal." The basic principle of syllogism is: What is true of the universal is true of the particular. The axiom of syllogism may be stated as: If we know every member of a that class certain has a certain are characteristic, and individuals Two terms appear in each statement: the "major term" in the major premise, and the conclusion, the "minor term" in the minor premise and conclusion, and the "middle term" in the major and minor premises but not in the conclusion. The middle term covers a broad range of facts, ant that, if the conclusion is to be valid, the minor term must be a fact that is included within the middle term. Each statement in a syllogism must relate to the other two. most legal problems. Using it will help you reduce your arguments to their most essential parts. The three parts of a syllogism - the two premises and conclusion - are themselves built from three units. These units are called "terms."

members of that class, then those individuals must have that characteristic.

The fact that syllogisms aren't immediately evident doesn't mean that the writing is sloppy, or that it doesn't use syllogisms. But it does mean that you'll have to work a bit harder as a reader. Sometimes it's more than a matter of rearranging sentences and rephrasing statements to match up with the syllogistic form. Sometimes a legal writer doesn't mention all parts of the syllogism, leaving you to read between the lines. Logicians are certainly aware that an argument can be founded on a syllogism although not all parts of the syllogism are expressed. Such an argument is called an enthymeme. Enthymemes are used for efficiency's sake. If a premise or conclusion is obvious, then writer can save her precious words to make less obvious points. Judges and lawyers write for more educated audiences and so as a enthymemes. law student, be ready for hosts of

Just because two things share a common property does not mean they also shared a second property. Inductive reasoning. Inductive generalization is a form of logic in which big, general principles are divined from observing the outcomes of many small events. In this form of inductive logic, you reason from multiple particulars to the general. We look to inductive reasoning when our legal research fails to turn up a hefty, hearty precedent that controls the case. When there is no clear statute - no governing authority - to provide the major premise necessary for a syllogism, the law student must build the major premise himself. This requires him to draw upon the cumulative experience of the judiciary - the specific holdings of other cases. Once a student has assembled enough case law, he tries to fashion a general rule that supports his position. Inductive generalizations are easy enough to understand.

An astute reader of the case should recognize that a bit of work on her part is necessary in order to develop the enthymeme into a full-pledged syllogism. In addition to not handling the reader syllogisms on a silver platter, legal writers also have the tendency to pile one syllogism on top of another. A series of syllogisms in which the conclusion of one syllogism supplies a premise of the next syllogism is known a a polysyllogism.

But you must be careful to assemble a sufficient number of examples before shaping a far-reaching rule, or you will be guilty of the Fallacy of Hasty Generalization. This fallacy occurs when you construct a general rule from an inadequate number of particulars. The strength of an inductive argument rests not only on the number of examples you turn up to support your generalization, but also on the representativeness of the sample size. Analogy. Analogies serve a very specific purpose.

Polysyllogisms are used because more than one logical step is needed to reach the desired conclusion. Beware of bogus arguments masquerading as syllogisms. The principle behind syllogism is that what's true of the universal is true of the specific. In deductive

Attorneys use them to compare new legal issues to firmly established precedents. This means that a current case is compared to an older one, and the outcome of the new case is predicted on the basis of the other's outcome. Analogical reasoning has a three-step process: 1) establish similarities between two cases, 2) announce the rule of law embedded in the first case, 3) apply the rule of law to the second case. Analogy makes one-to-one comparisons that require no generalizations or reliance on universal rules. Analogy is a process of reasoning from the particular to the particular.

reasoning, you reason from the general to the particular. If you're unsure about the nature of the general, you can't draw proper conclusions about the particular. The golden rule of syllogism: you can only draw a conclusion about the particular after you demonstrate that it's part of the universal class.

should be - of what is wrong and what is right - and often A proper analogy should identify the respects in which the compared cases, or fact scenarios, resemble one another and the respects in which they differ. In reading cases, writing briefs and arguing before a Logicians teach that one must always appraise an court, you will be more effective if you flesh out the logical bones of your arguments and attempt to appeal to the judge in other ways as well. Several criteria may be used: 1) the acceptability of the analogy will vary proportionately with the number of circumstances that have been analyzed; 2) the acceptability will depend upon the number of positive resemblances (similarities) and negative resemblances ( dissimilarities); or 3) the acceptability will be influenced by the relevance of the purported analogies. Law professors love to test your ability to work with analogies by inventing grueling hypotheticals. The given reasons are: 1) it forces you to grapple with questions of law that aren't amenable to syllogisms; 2) A professor can easily and repeatedly change the facts of the hypo, allowing him to ask questions of many students, ant to probe the boundaries of a particular legal issue; 3) The fear of getting trapped in the tangle of a knotty question encourages students to study the law with care and to absorb its details. If you find yourself in the Socratic spotlight, remember the basic principles of analogy; they can be your lifeline. Begin by discussing the facts of a similar case that you are familiar with and then lay out the particulars of the hypothetical the professor have asked. Draw as many comparisons between the two cases as you can. If the relevant similarities outweigh the relevant Always bear in mind: An argument that is correctly reasoned may be wrong, but an argument that is incorrectly reasoned can never be right. analogical argument very carefully. strive to do justice as much as to fulfill the mandates of precedent. They have biases too.

differences, the outcomes of the cases should be the same. Logical limits. There is more to the law than assembling logical expressions. Make sure your premises are true. Logic is not the whole game. Even if you premises are true and your logical statements constructed properly, it is crucial to recognize that judges are motivated by more than mandates of logic. Judges have notions of how things