ABSTRACT
This chapter develops a systematic understanding of the manner in which lawyers analyze, synthesize, and apply policies in the legal reasoning process. It describes the way in which a rule can be analyzed as a compromise among various pairs of conflicting policies. The chapter discusses some of the more pervasive policy conflicts in American law. A first basic tension in American law is essentially political in nature and centers on whether to grant primacy to the individual or the community. The chapter explains one method by which the policies relevant to a particular situation can be synthesized by identifying the relationship that each policy bears to the others in that situation. The chapter explores the manner in which policies are applied to decide particular disputes. In a particular situation, any two policies may have any of three relationships with respect to their consequences. They may be consistent, opposed, or independent in their consequences.
