Customer Reviews

Logic for Lawyers : A Guide to Clear Legal Thinking

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Judge Aldisert's book cogently explains the fundamental role that logic plays in law. For the law student (or pre-law student), it provides a shortcut to understanding the basics of legal reasoning, including the common law doctrine of precedent, identifying weaknesses in legal arguments, and fashioning winning arguments through syllogisms. The rest of your law school classmates may flail in the darkness of the Socratic Method, but this book illuminates what the prof is attempting to do.

I'm an attorney and did not have the benefit of Judge Aldisert's wisdom until after graduation. But he explained many murky concepts that I had only vaguely understood. Before reading the book, I could tell you that one argument was better than another; now I can put my finger on why. This book is for anyone who wants to improve his or her legal reasoning skills.

The Kindle version of this textbook is a giant mess, avoid at all costs. It is poorly organized, footnotes appear in the middle of paragraphs, and sentences and paragraphs in various places are jumbled and incoherent. Ultimately, the Kindle version of this book is rendered almost useless. If you need this book, buy a hard copy!!!

I can't say it any better than in Aldisert's own words in his chapter on the Socratic Method: "An understanding of the principles of deduction and induction will significantly assist the student in the daily exercise [i.e. the Socratic Method used by law professors in the classroom]. To lack this understanding is to be substantially, if not totally, disadvantaged."

I'm a former legal researcher at a law firm and incoming 1L student at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. This book was on my reading list and I must say, it is an outstanding book on the logical process attorneys use on a daily basis. The book is clear and concise, offering in-depth commentary on certain logic terms, that even the average layman can understand somewhat. The book also contains a great source of humorous passages, that help ease the strain of learning a process, that can be somewhat mundane at times. However, once you have a full grasp on the concepts explained in the book, every argument from thereon, becomes a collection of categorical syllogisms that you can dissect and understand.

The only qualm, is that one should have a logic background, if at all possible. I took a logic class in undergrad, so this book was a refresher in some areas and explained how to apply those unearthed principles to the law. As previously mentioned, an average layman can understand some of the concepts, but in the more advanced areas of the book, having a background in logic would help tremendously and preclude the book from sounding too much like a text/casebook.

Great good fortune introduced me to this landmark book in the year of its first publication, 1988, over a decade after I graduated from law school.

This book's outstanding revelation to me was neither its (useful) discussion of deductive or inductive reasoning (which, to me, were comparatively elementary), nor syllogistic reasoning (which to me was not only elementary but problematic).

The book's discussion of "formal" fallacies, including syllogisms, is interesting and worthwhile, and knowledge of the existence of these formal fallacies is important. However, I question the need, as a criteria of reasoning validity, of strict, universal application of these formal reasoning structures to an analysis and evaluation of judicial opinions or practical legal reasoning.

This book's blockbuster revelation to me was its discussion of "informal" fallacies, including the need for developing one's skill in recognizing or spotting "informal" fallacies in the reasoning of others - and in avoiding the commission of "informal" fallacies in one's own reasoning.

Other reviewers of this book comment on the need for studying a course on logic, as an adjunct to this book. I agree, with a qualification. I feel the greatest need, in practical or legal reasoning, is for treatises providing in-depth analysis of each "informal" fallacy. Fortunately, such treatises are now beginning to appear.

Another significant deficiency in modern logic textbooks is their failure to provide compelling and unique examples of the "informal" fallacies noted (on a theoretical basis) in these textbooks. In this area of illustrative examples, Judge Aldisert's book contains a treasure trove of numerous examples of "informal" fallacies, the value of which is enhanced by the fact that they are all discussed in the context of judicial opinions from court cases, which Judge Aldisert quotes in his text.

No matter how many treatises regarding "informal" fallacies which have now appeared and will now appear in the future, Judge Aldisert's book will always remain on my bookshelf - this book remains my "first stop" in my search for relevant issues of "legal logic."

My award of "five stars" to this book is not because this book is definitive (it is not), but because it is seminal, and in my heart and mind, is a classic, and remains an indispensable, introductory overview to any prospective law student or practitioner.

I am thrilled that some publishers of professional resources are starting to make their books available in Kindle format. I've had the dead-tree version of "Logic for Lawyers" on my shelf for a couple of years, but I wasn't able to make time to actually read it until it came out as an e-book.

Unfortunately, however, the Kindle version needs a major clean-up. Footnotes appear at random throughout the text, often in mid-paragraph and sometimes even mid-sentence. Words and phrases are inexplicably missing. In several places, multiple sentences are intermingled, resulting in gibberish. (I ended up keeping the hard copy at hand so that I could untangle the botched passages.) And the table of contents is marred by unnecessary "leader dots" carried over from the hard copy.

It's a shame that the e-book was so poorly produced, because "Logic for Lawyers" is an excellent work.

If you are preparing for law school or attending law school, then you need to read this book. This book will improve your understanding/analysis of common law and improve your ability to construct legal arguments.

I have "invested" in many books to help with the law school experience. Wish I had discovered this one first. Clears up a lot of questions about what the cases mean and how to understand the logic of the law. Should be required reading for first semester in law school.

This book is very well written guide. It goes beyond simple explanations of the Socratic method by digging deep into inductive and deductive resoning.