Thinking like a lawyer?

I often hear people say that one of the biggest but most rewarding challenges of law school is learning how to "think like a lawyer." Legal reasoning, as I understand it, should be foreign to most of us. In fact, it’s largely based on the logical reasoning and argumentation skills that many of us have acquired during our high school and college years.

Last semester, I stumbled upon a really neat article by Georgetown University professor Charles King entitled “How to Think.” I imagine of this will largely be old news for most of you, but I think the article does a great job of laying out basic points on how to reason logically and how to structure a valid argument. In addition, the piece contains one of my all-time favorite quotes:

“Some opinions are well-formed and intelligently reasoned; others are off-the-cuff and ignorant…. Tolerance means being willing to listen to others; it does not mean you have to agree with them or, after hearing their viewpoint, even take them seriously.”

Here I think King makes an important point that is particularly relevant given the state of much of our discourse today. At the risk of seeming partisan, I find that discussions often either a.) only include members who already largely agree on the issue at debate (e.g. political talk radio) or b.) seek to include multiple views of people that often talk past one another without actually wrestling with the logic that underlies those positions (CNN and NPR anyone?). While it’s certainly important to consider counterarguments and take alternate viewpoints into account, it’s important to remember those viewpoints are only as good as the reasoning that underlies them. If that reasoning turns out to be faulty, the argument must be amended or rejected.