THINKING LIKE A LAWYER A NEW INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL REASONINGPDF电子书下载

1 Introduction: Is There Legal Reasoning? 1

2 Rules—in Law and Elsewhere 13

2.1 Of Rules in General 13

2.2 The Core and the Fringe 18

2.3 The Generality of Rules 24

2.4 The Formality of Law 29

3 The Practice and Problems of Precedent 36

3.1 Precedent in Two Directions 36

3.2 Precedent—The Basic Concept 37

3.3 A Strange Idea 41

3.4 On Identifying a Precedent 44

3.5 Of Holdings and Dicta 54

3.6 On the Force of Precedent—Overruling, Distinguishing,and Other Types of Avoidance 57

4 Authority and Authorities 61

4.1 The Idea of Authority 61

4.2 On Binding and So-Called Persuasive Authority 67

4.3 Why Real Authority Need Not Be “Binding” 75

4.4 Can There Be Prohibited Authorities? 77

4.5 How Do Authorities Become Authoritative? 80

5 The Use and Abuse of Analogies 85

5.1 On Distinguishing Precedent from Analogy 85

5.2 On the Determination of Similarity 92

5.3 The Skeptical Challenge 96

5.4 Analogy and the Speed of Legal Change 100

6 The Idea of the Common Law 103

6.1 Some History and a Comparison 103

6.2 On the Nature of the Common Law 108

6.3 How Does the Common Law Change? 112

6.4 Is the Common Law Law? 117

6.5 A Short Tour of the Realm of Equity 119

7 The Challenge of Legal Realism 124

7.1 Do Rules and Precedents Decide Cases? 124

7.2 Does Doctrine Constrain Even If It Does Not Direct? 134

7.3 An Empirical Claim 138

7.4 Realism and the Role of the Lawyer 142

7.5 Critical Legal Studies and Realism in Modern Dress 144

8 The Interpretation of Statutes 148

8.1 Statutory Interpretation in the Regulatory State 148

8.2 The Role of the Text 151

8.3 When the Text Provides No Answer 158

8.4 When the Text Provides a Bad Answer 163

8.5 The Canons of Statutory Construction 167

9 The Judicial Opinion 171

9.1 The Causes and Consequences of Judicial Opinions 171

9.2 Giving Reasons 175

9.3 Holding and Dicta Revisited 180

9.4 The Declining Frequency of Opinions 184

10 Making Law with Rules and Standards 188

10.1 The Basic Distinction 188

10.2 Rules, Standards, and the Question of Discretion 190

10.3 Stability and Flexibility 194

10.4 Rules and Standards in Judicial Opinions 196

10.5 On the Relation between Breadth and Vagueness 200

11 Law and Fact 203

11.1 On the Idea of a Fact 203

11.2 Determining Facts at Trial—The Law of Evidence and Its Critics 206

11.3 Facts and the Appellate Process 212

12 The Burden of Proof and Its Cousins 219

12.1 The Burden of Proof 219

12.2 Presumptions 224

12.3 Deference and the Allocation of Decision-Making Responsibility 229

Index 235