Inside the American Legal Mind: An International Practitioner Guide to American Legal Reasoning

by Kevin J. Fandl

Overview

Inside the American Legal Mind:An International Practitioner Guide to American Legal Reasoning clearly explains how to navigate within U.S. legal practice. A combination of common law legal history with the straight-shooting American style has resulted in an approach to issue analysis that is structurally different from other fields and from the civil law systems common in other countries. Precedent drives the interpretive process, providing the pillars upon which an American lawyer builds a case. Understanding how to capture relevant aspects of precedent, merge those aspects with precedent from seemingly distinct cases, and apply the resulting formula to a given fact pattern can be a harrowing experience for anyone untrained in American legal thinking.

This book bridges that gap for aspiring lawyers in America as well as for foreign legal practitioners. Fandl clearly and concisely demonstrates how to research, analyze, and ultimately condense legal ideas into written form in the American legal style. Suitable for undergraduates in U.S. Criminal Justice programs and for LL.M. courses, as well as for continuing education for professionals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781317269816
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/05/2015
Series:	500 Tips
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	162
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Kevin J. Fandl is a Professor of Legal Studies and Global Business Strategy at the Fox School of Business at Temple University. He had previously served as Chief of Staff for international trade and intellectual property at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In 2011, he founded the Global Legal Education Institute, which delivers intensive practical law courses to foreign legal practitioners and advanced law students around the world.

Table of Contents

1. The Value in Understanding American Legal Reasoning, 2. The Commercial History of the Common Law, 3. The Judge vs. the Legislature (Cases and Statutes), 4. The Seduction of Deduction (Logic), 5. Arguing by Analogy: The Creative Lawyer, 6. Concluding Remarks—Inside the Mind of the American Lawyer