An English poet, Charles Lamb, once said – “He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides”.
The above statement puts the concepts of analytical thinking and reasoning skills of a legal brain in a nutshell and this piece is all about how it is critically important to imbibe the reasoning skills for a lawyer. Reasoning is a skill with various essential branches, such as inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, analytical reasoning, critical reasoning etc, to name a few. Although it is a necessary skill for a person associated with the legal profession, analytical reasoning and critical reasoning are equally crucial for persons across the entire professional spectrum as it is a life skill. Simply put, inculcating the skill of analytical thinking would mean, ‘how to think like a lawyer’.
What makes Analytical thinking so important?:
For a budding lawyer, analytical thinking is the first step towards becoming a fine-tuned lawyer, and there is a strong reason behind it. When one goes to law school, more often than not, one carries certain personal opinions and dogmas or beliefs. This is a ‘raw form’in which a budding lawyer enters a law school, where their brain is already heavily influenced by the environment they come from and their surroundings. Developing analytical thinking is critical here because the first thing one needs to learn in a law school is to unlearn what they have learnt up until now and develop a rational brain and more sophisticated thinking. Being more open-minded, unbiased, seeing things the way they are and not the way they should be (according to one) are the traits that every budding lawyer should inculcate. Thinking analytically would undoubtedly help one developing oneself into a fine-tunedlawyer.
A lawyermust be able to think of their feet and should know how to cleverly shift their stand, if presented with any contradicting evidence in a court of law. It takes a critical thinker to evaluate the strength and weakness of their arguments and one must also be able to think of the possible rebuttal arguments and form rejoinder arguments against such rebuttals. One needs to form arguments be keeping personal biases and views aside, which can jeopardize the decision of a case, and think analytically about every argument.
A popular point of distinction between analytical thinking and critical thinking is that the former means breaking down complex information into smaller parts and making sense out of it while the latter involves taking some external knowledge into account while evaluating information and being a ‘critique’ towards the presented information and then reconstructing it. Critical thinking is also known as objective analysis thinking. It involves dissecting pieces of information and using that information to form ‘something new, fresh and innovative’.
Law school’s role in developing analytical thinking:
One of the prime objectives of a law school is, to make one think like a lawyer. Law schools ensure that critical and analytical thinking becomes a natural way of thinking for the law students. While working on a case, many a time a lawyerhas to do the ground work for the case and it involves deriving information by deduction and induction, meeting with the clients, etc. Sometimes, a lawyercan get overwhelmed by the information provided by the client and lose the track of objectivity. Being a critical and analytical thinker helps one stay on track and keeps in mind the objectivity that leads one to desired results. The foundation stone of this analytical mentality is laid down in the law school and it goes a long way. For more information on how to produce critically acclaimed writings and legal pieces, contact WOLR today! WOLR is your personal all time academic assistant. WOLRhelps you in your assignments, helps you with lecture notes and much more! In short, we at World of Legal Research ease your law school burden!
-Anmol Goswami
