Thinking Like a Lawyer: A New Introduction to Legal Reasoning Book

2.1 Of Rules in General

2.2 The Core and the Fringe

2.3 The Generality of Rules

2.4 The Formality of Law

3.1 Precedent in Two Directions

3.2 Precedent—The Basic Idea

3.3 A Strange Idea

3.4 On Identifying a Precedent

3.5 On the Force of Precedent—Overruling, Distinguishing, and Other Types of Avoidance

4.1 The Idea of Authority

4.2 On Binding and So-Called Persuasive Authority

4.3 Why Real Authority Need Not be “Binding”

4.4 Can There Be Prohibited Authorities?

4.5 How Authorities Become Authoritative

5.1 On Distinguishing Precedent from Analogy

5.2 On the Determination of Similarity

5.3 The Skeptical Challenge

5.4 Analogy and the Speed of Legal Change

6.1 Some History and a Comparison

6.2 On the Nature of the Common Law

6.3 How Does the Common Law Change?

6.4 Is the Common Law Law?

6.5 A Short Tour of the Realm of Equity

7.1 Do Rules and Precedents Decide cases?

7.2 Does Doctrine Constrain Even if It Does Not Direct?

7.3 An Empirical Claim

7.4 Realism and the Role of the Lawyer

7.5 Critical Legal Studies and Realism in Modern Dress

8.1 Statutory Interpretation in the Regulatory State

8.2 The Role of the Text

8.3 When the Text Provides No Answer

8.4 When the Text Provides a Bad Answer

8.5 The Canons of Statutory Construction

9.1 The Causes and Consequences of Judicial Opinions

9.2 Giving Reasons

9.3 On Holding and Dicta

9.4 The Declining Frequency of Opinions

10.1 The Basic Distinction

10.2 Rules, Standards, and the Question of Discretion

10.3 Stability and Flexibility

10.4 Rules and Standards in Judicial Opinions

11.1 On the Idea of a Fact

11.2 Determining Facts at Trial—The Law of Evidence and Its Critics

11.3 Facts and the Appellate Process

12.1 The Burden of Proof

12.2 Presumptions

12.3 Deference and the Allocation of Decision-Making Responsibility