The Five Types of Legal Argument

the long version

"Beginning law students often wonder what is so hard about learning the law of being a lawyer. It should be easy - you should be able to look up the law on any subject and apply it to the facts. We shouldn't even need lawyers and judges to tell us what the law is. In law school, professors assign 'hard cases' for their students to read. These are cases where one legal argument gives one result, and another legal argument gives another result. The teaching method that law professors generally use is the 'Socratic method.' Instead of lecturing to their students, law professors ask their students questions that expose the conflicts in the law. Many law students are mystified by this approach, and struggle to learn the techniques of legal reasoning. In this book Wilson Huhn shows why legal reasoning is so fascinating to study and so difficult to master. There are five types of legal arguments, and each type of argument can potentially give a different answer to the same legal question. Furthermore, each type of legal argument has characteristic strengths and weaknesses. Since each type of legal argument has a different structure and is based on different evidence of what the law is, each type of argument can be attacked in characteristic ways. With hundreds of examples from judicial opinions, Professor Huhn lays out all of the ways that legal arguments can be attacked, and explains how to compare one type of legal argument to another. The third edition of the book adds a chapter on the role that reasoning by analogy plays in resolving difficult cases and in the development of the law. The Five Types of Legal Argument is a must for anyone in law school. Lawyers and judges will also find it to be a thoughtful reflection on the processes of legal reasoning that have become second nature to them, and it will be a revelation to anyone who loves the law"--Unedited summary from book cover.