Logic for Law Students: How to Think Like a Lawyer

Abstract

Logic is the lifeblood of American law. In case after case, prosecutors, defense counsel, civil attorneys, and judges call upon the rules of logic to structure their arguments. Law professors, for their part, demand that students defend their comments with coherent, identifiable logic. By now we are all familiar with the great line spoken by Professor Kingsfield in The Paper Chase: “You come in here with a head full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer.” What is thinking like a lawyer? It means employing logic to construct arguments.