Thinking Like a Lawyer

“A welcome complement to [Edward] Levi’s approach, as well as being easier for the legal novice to understand. Yet Schauer’s book also offers the lawyer and scholar useful perspective on what he or she does.”—Brian Leiter, Times Literary Supplement

“Thinking Like a Lawyer is excellent reading material for anyone wishing a deeper and more nuanced—even a more magnanimous—understanding of the motivations behind law’s often convoluted pronouncements.”—John Azzolini, Law Library Journal

“This book will belong on every law professor’s and law student’s bookshelf—and on many others’ bookshelves as well.”—Lawrence A. Alexander, University of San Diego School of Law, author of Is There a Right of Freedom of Expression?

“Thinking Like a Lawyer is well-designed to work for first-year law school classes. It covers the most important themes relating to law and legal reasoning, and manages to do so in ways that are accessible and thought-provoking.”—Brian H. Bix, University of Minnesota, author of Jurisprudence: Theory and Context

“Thinking Like a Lawyer is by far the best available introduction to legal reasoning, of interest to law students and their teachers alike. It should be enlightening to the general reader as well, who will learn what, for better and perhaps for worse, distinguishes ‘thinking like a lawyer’ from other approaches to analyzing social problems.”—Sanford V. Levinson, University of Texas Law School, author of Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong

“Schauer is a leading scholar of jurisprudence and legal process, and his new book is as comprehensive, thorough, and sophisticated an introduction to legal reasoning as it is a lucid one. All of the bases are covered, and law students, teachers, practicing lawyers, and judges alike will gain perspective and insight from seeing the entire range of legal reasoning techniques laid out before them.”—Richard A. Posner, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, author of How Judges Think