ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book attempts to identify the techniques involved in thinking like a lawyer. It provides an introduction to the five steps in the legal reasoning process. The book presents a systematic approach to the analysis, synthesis, and application of the policies with which the lawyer constructs legal arguments. Despite the importance of policy judgments to legal reasoning, lawyers have not widely acknowledged the method for utilizing policies in legal reasoning. The book suggests ways of identifying relevant policies and establishing relationships among policies that will aid in constructing arguments. It explains how mainstream legal reasoning came to be seen as a distinctive mixture of logic and judgment and introduces the reader to some of the problems generated by this method of resolving legal disputes.
