ADRO 23A00 - Thinking Like a Lawyer

This class will engage students in a reflection on the specific components of legal reasoning

and argument, on the basis of a selection of cases or texts to be prepared each week. It will

also provide elements of comparative and historical legal theory in order to understand the

terms in which law (lawyers) think about significant societal issues. The format is interactive

and will comprise various practical exercises (hypotheticals, construction of argument, case

analysis, and interpretation of texts) designed to help understand the specific mentality of

legal actors (judge, attorney, legislator...). Grading will take place on the basis of a

continuous assessment (class participation, written exercises). The course will be available

on moodle.

Lecture course totaling 24hours accompanied by tutorials totaling 24hours

What (if anything) is specific about legal argument? Preliminary thoughts on legal

epistemology, theory and praxis.

Part I: Adjudication (and forms of judicial intervention)

• The common law tradition
• The civil law tradition.
• Constitutional interpretation and judicial revie

Part II: Justice (and its many species)

• Random justice
• Predictive justice
• Impartial justice (post-structuralist critique)
• Human rights (the last Utopia?

2

Part III: Law and its others

• Law and politics
• Is law a social science?
• Law and its language(s).

Conclusions

• Synthesis. Surprise guest speaker.

Lecture course for 1/3 of the total grade

Tutorials for 2/3 of the total grade