Preface
This book is written as both a companion to and an underpinning of
the author’s book Legal Method. Legal Method, as the title professes,
describes methods or techniques for working with law. This book
seeks to justify these methods by demonstrating that they are based
on sound reasoning.
In approaching the task, the author has worked from the ground up.
This entails starting with first principles and working through to a
logical understanding of what the tasks for working with legal
materials entail. This logical understanding is the science on which
the technology, constituted by legal method or legal skills, is
constructed.
While this book can stand on its own as a work of philosophy, its
motivation did not derive from any purely intellectual motive
(although the writing of it was a time of great joy). Of course it may
assist in debate on the questions it covers, even by throwing up
errors that push others towards truth. However, the motive that
initiated the writing was to further the author’s crusade for legal
method to be taken seriously. At present lawyers work with legal
materials with a low level of skills gleaned by osmosis but not by
direct instruction. Law schools either do not teach the skills or teach
ways of performing skills that just do not work. Until lawyer start to
take skills seriously, law schools will function well below optimum
and their graduates will similarly perform sub optimally when they
work with law. This lack of direct instruction in skills is the reason
that so many legal textbooks are difficult to read, as are many
judgments from the High Court down the hierarchy. It is also a
likely reason that cases in court are so beset with cost and delay.
This book is currently published in electronic form. This is a dress
rehearsal for final publication. There is good reason for this delay in
formal publication. This book and its companions (Legal Method and
Legal Writing) approach their allotted tasks in a manner different
from the usual approach. By publishing these books in amenable
form the writer is seeking to elicit comment and feedback from
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