Legal Reasoning, Writing, and Other Lawyering Skills

Legal Reasoning, Writing and Other Lawyering Skills, 3rd Edition (formerly known as Legal Reasoning, Writing, and Persuasive Argument) draws on lessons from neuroscience and psychology to deepen students' understanding of self and others, and of the emotional biases and filters that undermine their efforts to "think like a lawyer." Legal Reasoning, Writing, and Other Lawyering Skills, 3rd Edition retains the same core chapters of earlier editions that emphasize and illustrate the "process" of thinking through, and writing about, a client problem. However, the new edition expands its coverage to include the practicalities of modern-day legal practice, and also expands the lawyering skills that are introduced in the book. In this new edition, the book can be used in a typical two-semester legal skills course, as well as more intensive two-semester courses, and three- and even four-semester courses. Some of the exciting new coverage of Legal Reasoning, Writing and Other Lawyering Skills includes: Psychological Factors that Impair Thinking: Students often become enmeshed in viewing legal problems through a myopic lens that reflects their limited and often superficial worldviews. They frequently leap to premature (and often faulty) conclusions, and then stubbornly cling to their positions while ignoring evidence suggesting that they are wrong. One reason students struggle is because poor judgment and a myopic perspective cannot be solved through the logic of the analytical mind. Instead, modern neuroscience suggests that such problems stem from the emotional centers of the brain, and that the answer isn't to appeal to "reason," but to address the hidden emotional biases and selective perceptions that cause such problems in the first place. This new edition educates students about the "emotional brain," helps them recognize the red flags that indicate their judgment is impaired, and teaches students how to "prosecute" their own thinking