By: Katie Nagy
When I think about being a lawyer, the first
thing that pops to my mind is Law and Order. I don’t believe that a crime show
is an accurate portrayal of lawyers, so I am going to investigate what being a
lawyer is all about, and try to see if I can break any of my preconceptions. To
start, these are my preconceived ideas about being a lawyer:
- Law is mainly about memorizing
- Lawyers make a lot of money
- Lawyers need to be creative in order to win cases
- After law school, someone is ready to practice law
- Lawyers can read their clients
- Lawyers dislike being incorrect on a topic
Now that I
have my list together, it is time to put my assumptions to the test. I started
my research by reading through Thinking
Like a Lawyer: a New Introduction to Legal Reasoning by Frederick Schauer,
and I quickly realized how difficult it is to read through a book completely
about the legal reasoning of lawyers. There was no available “Intro to Law”
textbook that breaks down the logistics of being a lawyer, so I had to get
creative and ended up with the book by Schauer. I had to wade through
paragraphs of confusing lawyer lingo just to find something related to my list
about lawyers. To start, I was wrong about law being mainly about memorizing. I
pictured lawyers memorizing laws and then using those laws to either defend or
prosecute people, but Schauer writes about the trait legal reasoning, that only
lawyers seem to have. According to Schauer, legal reasoning is “mastery of an array of
talents in argument and decision making” (Schauer 1). Frederick Schauer also
seems to think that law school teaches the building blocks of law, but legal
reasoning is something you gain through legal arguments (Schauer 2).
I assumed that law students were ready to go out into the world and practice law as soon as they received their law degree and passed their testing, but it seems that law is something you keep learning as you go on in your life. Truthfully, the textbook was not very helpful as a resource, except for changing my perception of the way lawyers think. I assumed lawyers were smart, but I did not realize the critical thinking and the different way of thinking that helps them succeed in their professions. Schauer claims that lawyers think differently than non-lawyers, but has trouble pin pointing what is actually different between the two groups (Schauer 2). This resource was not at all basic, but it did assist me in opening my mind as to what traits lawyers had that made them so good at what their profession. Legal reasoning is not something you are born with, or gain by chance as you grow up, it is taught and practiced to law students.
Law Students. Digital image. Lewis Wagner. Lewis Wagner Law Firm, n.d. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.
I assumed that law students were ready to go out into the world and practice law as soon as they received their law degree and passed their testing, but it seems that law is something you keep learning as you go on in your life. Truthfully, the textbook was not very helpful as a resource, except for changing my perception of the way lawyers think. I assumed lawyers were smart, but I did not realize the critical thinking and the different way of thinking that helps them succeed in their professions. Schauer claims that lawyers think differently than non-lawyers, but has trouble pin pointing what is actually different between the two groups (Schauer 2). This resource was not at all basic, but it did assist me in opening my mind as to what traits lawyers had that made them so good at what their profession. Legal reasoning is not something you are born with, or gain by chance as you grow up, it is taught and practiced to law students.
Law Students. Digital image. Lewis Wagner. Lewis Wagner Law Firm, n.d. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.
Schauer, Frederick F. Thinking like a Lawyer: A New Introduction to Legal
Reasoning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2009. Print.
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