Self-study
Aaron: A prominent judge, criticizing "famous lawyers who come before courts ill-prepared to argue their cases," recently said, "This sort of cavalier attitude offends the court and can do nothing but harm to the client's cause." I find the judge's remarks irresponsible.
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Speaker 1 Summary
An important judge criticized famous lawyers who aren’t prepared to argue their cases in court. Aaron asserts that the judge’s comments were irresponsible.
Speaker 2 Summary
Belinda asserts that the judge was good to make that criticism. This is because letting the lawyers know about the damage caused by their lack of preparation is a responsible thing to do.
Objective
We’re looking for a point of disagreement. The speakers disagree about whether the judge’s criticism was responsible. Aaron believes it wasn’t. Belinda believes it was.
4.
The point at issue between █████ ███ ███████ ██ ███████
a
ill-prepared lawyers damage █████ ████████ ██████
Aaron doesn’t express an opinion. He calls the judge’s remarks irresponsible, but that doesn’t mean he believes ill-prepared lawyers harm their clients. He might just think the judge shouldn’t have aired that criticism publicly.
b
the judge's criticism ██ ███████ ██ █████████████
This is a point of disagreement. Aaron thinks the judge’s remarks were irresponsible. Belinda thinks the judge engaged in responsible behavior by letting the lawyers know about the harm they cause.
c
a lawyer's being ████████████ ██ █████ █ ████████ ████ ███████████ ██████████
Aaron doesn’t express an opinion. Although he thinks the judge’s remarks were irresponsible, that doesn’t imply he thinks ill-prepared lawyers are not negligent. He might agree that those lawyers are negligent, but think the judge was wrong to air criticism publicly.
d
famous lawyers have █ ███████ ██████████████ ██ ██ ████ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ███ ███ ██████
Neither speaker expresses an opinion. They don’t discuss non-famous lawyers or what kind of lawyers has a greater responsibility to be prepared.
e
it is to ██ ████████ ████ ████████████ ███████ █████ ██████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ████ ██████
Neither speaker expresses an opinion. Although the speakers have opinions about whether the judge’s remarks were responsible, they don’t suggest anything about the concept of “offense” or who we would expect to cause offense to a court.