An Introduction to Legal Reasoning (Phoenix Books)

While Levi clarifies much that's uncertain about legal interpretation, I don't recommend this book for those with no previous studies in law. If you must read it -- and there ARE rewards from doing so -- be sure to have a law dictionary at hand.

Besides using legal terms that aren't explained, Levi's prose is so dense as to be almost unreadable, but worse, it lacks anything resembling clarity. He often barges straight in to lengthy analyses of concepts without explaining the basic terms he uses or even why they're relevant; these must be induced from the text while reading. Since Levi is usually demonstrating through examples how concepts change over time, however, it's difficult to pin down what the concept means at any one point, before Levi has already jumped ahead to the next point without explaining either.

It's also highly recommended that you look up the cases Levi cites, since his quotations from judges rarely contain enough critical information to piece together the actual concept involved. Finding the original and just reading the parts that he replaced with ellipses add an infinite degree of clarity.

I found this book to be helpful but somewhat basic. I is outlined nicely and is easy to follow. Good future reference. Recommend to students.

I appreciate Edward Levi's attention to detail. This book definitely goes beyond the standard textbook in terms of putting together a guide that is both interesting to read and informative. I'd recommend it to anybody in my situation, planning to attend law school, or even to practicing attorneys in need of a handy, compact reference guide to the basics.

The power to determine the law of the land resides within every citizen of the country by means of electing the officials they choose and the judicial system only upholds the law. The citizens of a country elect their leaders and once elected they are enshrined with the right to uphold the economic and political stability but any improper actions of a government should be corrected by means of the judicial process rather than by any political process. All differing opinions should be allowed to coexist with checks and balances as determined by the judicial system.

Legal reasoning is famously ambiguous: there's no objective way to determine the outcome of a given case as there is with a physics problem. If you know the weight of an item and the height from which it drops, you are able to determine fairly objectively (i) the rate at which it will fall to the earth and (ii) the time it will take to fall to the earth from the point at which it is dropped. Law, unfortunately, is not so straight-forward. Understanding its assumptions is absolutely critical to developing any sort of sophisticated understanding about the ways in which law affects civilization. This book provides a broad outline of those assumptions. I suggest having at least a rudimentary background in intellectual history and political philosophy to get the most out of this book.