vampiricprose | Law Notes: Reading and Thinking Like A Lawyer

To think like a lawyer, you have to practice shifting your mind into the ways a lawyer thinks and reads law.

In terms of a lawyer’s mindset, there are three key factors: Dispassionate analysis, which is where you separate emotion from logic, curiosity with constraint, which is where you questions assumptions within a set of rules, and a tolerance for ambiguity, which is being okay with there being no clear cut answer. Reading skills that lawyers apply include textual sensitivity, which means that every word and punctuation matter contextual analysis, which is knowing how to apply legal concepts into larger frameworks, like legislative intent or judicial precedent. Finally, the logical skills lawyers use include rule-based reasoning, which is being able to apply existing legal text to your specific situations and fact patterns, as well as knowing why the legal text says what it says, analogical reasoning, which is being able to look to past cases and seeing how that may to apply to your case or issue, and counterargument development, which is knowing how to argue against opposing viewpoints.

To read like a lawyer, you need to be precise. But how do you read like a lawyer, and what would stick out to a lawyer in a given statute? Before you can try and figure out how to read like a lawyer, you have to understand what a lawyer is searching for when they read legal text. What you need to know is that legal reading demands precision and that every word counts. Simple things such as a misplaced comma, a shift in verb tense, or an undefined term can completely change how a law is applied or whether it's even valid. The example statute given was, “No vehicles shall be allowed in the park.” There are several words that a lawyer might latch onto. Firstly, what is a vehicle? What does that include? Does that include bicycles and skateboards? Does shall mean that the rule is flexible or strict in this circumstance? To compound upon this example, let’s say you have a client fined for riding an electric scooter in the park. A lawyer might see if there were motorized wheelchairs or motorized eBikes allowed in the park before the client was fined.

Within legal research and writing, some structures exist that assist lawyers in presenting information most directly and straightforwardly as possible. Those structures are called IRAC (Issue, Rule, Application/Analysis, Conclusion) and CREAC (Conclusion, Rule, Explanation, Application/Analysis, Conclusion). IRAC is the most commonly used as follows:

Issue: Identify the precise legal question. What are we trying to resolve? Who does it involve? When did it take place? Where is the jurisdiction? Why did the issue occur? What took place? How did it take place?

Rule: Cite all relevant cases, like statutes, regulations, or precedents.

Application/Analysis: Explain how those legal texts apply to the specific facts of the case.

Conclusion: Explain what decision you would reach, and why

As for CREAC, it follows the same fundamentals, but with a different structure, and is typically used to allow for deeper legal text analysis.