Preface; 1. A brief introduction to the common law; 2. The rule-based model of legal reasoning; 3. Reasoning from precedent and the principle of stare decisis; 4. How it is determined what rule a precedent establishes; 5. Reasoning from authoritative although not legally binding legal rules; 6. The role of social morality, social policy, and empirical propositions in legal reasoning and the judicial adoption of new legal rules based on social propositions; 7. Legal rules, principles, and standards; 8. The malleability of legal rules; 9. Hiving off new legal rules, creating exceptions to established rules, and distinguishing; 10. Reasoning from analogy; 11. The roles of logic, deduction, and good judgement in legal reasoning; 12. Reasoning from hypotheticals; 13. Overruling.
This book provides a thoroughgoing discussion of the modes of reasoning utilized in judge-made (or common) law.
Melvin Aron Eisenberg is Jesse H. Choper Professor of Law Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley Law School. He is the author of The Nature of the Common Law and Foundational Principles of Contract Law.
'In Legal Reasoning, Melvin Eisenberg has produced a short but
quite comprehensive and readable overview of the forms of reasoning
employed by lawyers and judges, with copious examples drawn from
the author's encyclopedic knowledge of the common law.' Larry
Alexander, Warren Distinguished Professor, University of San Diego
School of Law
'Mel Eisenberg, long regarded as one of America's most
distinguished jurists, has produced an illuminating overview of the
Common Law. Legal Reasoning is beautifully structured, briskly
argued, and gracefully illustrated with dozens of cases. The case
method in tort, property, and contract sometimes gives the
impression of just one damn thing after another. But Common Law
really comes to life in these pages, as Professor Eisenberg makes a
compelling case for reconciling principled and pragmatic
considerations in the woven fabric of the law.' Jeremy Waldron,
University Professor, NYU School of Law
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