Analyzing Every Dimension

The Lawyering Method incorporates and exceeds syllogistic reasoning. While rule-based reasoning is a critical component of lawyering, expert lawyers use additional modes of analysis to manage contingencies more effectively.  Once named and defined, students can learn these modes and improve competency over the course of their careers. They are:

 

 

 

Logical analysis is often mistakenly thought to be relevant only to the interpretation of law.  Reasoning correctly from rule to consequence is surely at the heart of interpreting law.  There is, however, no aspect of professional practice in which fallacious reasoning can be tolerated.  To manage an interactive setting, you must reason logically from its rules of play and from the dispositions of the players.  To identify and refine desires, you must follow the logic of alternative consequences.  A detective's logic facilitates the interpretation of facts.  The skilled lawyer uses logical analysis to attack every dimension of a legal problem.

 

 

 

Institutional and socio-cultural analysis is more evidently cross-cutting.  The settings for much of a lawyer’s work are institutional – courts, administrative and service agencies, corporate and not-for-profit clients, to name a few.  Advocacy within these settings requires understanding how they are structured and what motivates the players within them. Moreover, rules are often the creation of institutions and therefore best understood in light of institutional pressures.  And every dimension of a legal matter is affected by large and small cultures – the cultures of courts, agencies, markets, geographic areas, nationalities, genders, and religious groups, for example.  The informal rules that “govern” these cultures are often as relevant to a lawyer’s work as the rules produced by legislatures or administrative bodies.

 

 

 

Intra-personal analysis is the self-reflective process by which we understand our own feelings and actions. Inter-personal analysis is the process by which we understand and manage human interactions. We refer to intra- and inter-personal analysis collectively as psychological analysis.  At first blush, psychological analysis seems uniquely relevant to understanding and managing strategic interactions. But psychological analysis, like logical analysis, is a more versatile tool than its name might suggest. Law suits, legislative deliberations, interviews and negotiations are all human interactions.  Understanding and managing these settings therefore requires inter-personal sophistication, and behaving strategically in them requires intra-personal awareness and control.   Deciphering and negotiating goals requires inter-personal intelligence, and communicating effectively in that process requires intra-personal intelligence.  Whether we work from documents, from physical evidence, or from interviews, investigating and piecing together the facts and implications of a human situation requires both intra-personal and inter-personal intelligence. And because rules are human creations, usually for the management of human interaction, psychological analysis is required to interpret them.

 

 

 

Rhetorical analysis is most obviously relevant to the construction of arguments. If arguments are understood as tools to strategically manage interactions, the study of persuasive communication requires more than drafting memos and briefs. It requires careful listening and a deft use of language, narrative and visual aids. Rhetorical analysis must be seen as an interactive process that begins with appreciating the narratives clients are living, refining goals, developing strategy, and communicating effectively from this understanding.

 

 

 

Role analysis is a tool to examine performance and determine the type of action required for responsible advocacy. A lawyer may function as a governor of a client’s behavior, a guardian of a client’s well-being, or a guide in a client’s self-determined quest. Balancing these roles is an inevitable part of tackling each dimension of a lawyering task. It can determine the choice of forum or setting for achieving the client’s goals.  It can determine how assertive the lawyer may be in refining those goals.  And it can determine a lawyer’s responsibilities in the interpretation of facts and rules. Role analysis cultivates a habit of reflecting on choices and strengthening ethical sensibilities critical to successful lawyering.

 

 

Every law student has the ability to become proficient in each of these skills once they are named, experienced, and cultivated with close mentoring, but no one comes to law school with each of them well enough developed for the practice of law.  Indeed, few people come to law school with any of these competencies developed to the level and in the fashion that professional practice requires.  Providing an integrated, practice-oriented approach to legal education is the hallmark of the Lawyering Method.