Edward C. Martin

Professor of Law

     From the very first day of your law school experience, professors in every course will challenge you daily with stern admonitions that you are expected to learn how to "think like a lawyer!" You will expend considerable amounts of time, effort, and energy throughout the next several years of your law career, both in the classroom and in personal study, trying to acquire this skill. Every professor, as well as every lawyer and judge that you will likely encounter, is quite capable of recognizing this unique skill when it is demonstrated on a written examination answer, or in a brief or appellate opinion, or when they hear it applied orally in a classroom response or before a court. However, few lawyers are actually able to articulate a precise definition of this very elusive concept, or to describe a set of specific criteria that can be applied as a "test" in determining whether any given argument is suitably "lawyer-like." Indeed, for many attorneys the answer to this question is frequently summarized in words similar to those penned by Justice Stevens who, writing a concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964), responded to the Supreme Court's refusal to precisely define what he characterized as an "indefinable" term such as "pornography" by explaining that: "perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…." Unfortunately, responses like this do not inspire great confidence for the beginning law student to actually master this important skill, nor do they offer much practical advice as to just how the process of "thinking like a lawyer" actually works. The purpose of this series of exercises is to provide some tangible set of criteria that can be used to aid in the development of this unique, but quite necessary, skill.