Teaching Legal Analysis Using a Pluralistic Model of Law

Abstract:     
A primary purpose of legal education is to teach the skills of legal analysis - the ability to identify, generate, and evaluate legal arguments.

There are five kinds of valid legal arguments: arguments may be based upon text, intent, precedent, tradition, or policy. Each type of legal argument is constructed from a different set of evidence of what the law is. Furthermore, each type of legal argument has characteristic strengths and weaknesses, and is subject to characteristic kinds of attacks. The persuasiveness of an argument is measured by its susceptibility to both “intramodal” and “intermodal” attacks.

Intramodal attacks challenge arguments on their own terms, while intermodal critiques are addressed to the validity or weight to be accorded to each kind of argument.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 94

Accepted Paper Series