Self-study
P1
A proficiency in understanding, applying, and even formulating statutes—the actual texts of laws enacted by legislative bodies—is a vital aspect of the practice of law, but statutory law is often given too little attention by law schools. ███
Author's perspective ·
Statutes are critical to practicing law, but not given enough attention in law school
Current law school approach ·
Focuses on judicial decisions
P2
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Benefit of changing focus ·
Much actual work is based on how statutes apply
Sometimes how statutes apply are obvious. But other times it's not, so it's important for law students to learn to interpret statutes.
P3
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Additional benefit of changing focus ·
Ability to synthesize laws
Caselaw focus doesn't do good job of helping students understand interrelations among laws. Focus on statutes helps students see how laws fit together. This can help when students encounter other areas of law.
P4
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Potential objection ·
Statutes are different from region to region
Concession ·
Specific knowledge of statutes isn't usually transferrable between regions
So a focus on statutes may not seem appropriate for nationally-oriented schools.
Response to objection ·
Skills acquired in mastering a set of statutes are transferable
Focus on statutes is still important for national-oriented schools.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Problem-analysis
14.
The information in the passage ████████ ████ ███ ██████ █████ ████ ██████ █████ ████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██████████ █████████ ████████ ██ █████████ ████
a
While nationally oriented ███ ███████ ████ ████ █████████ ██ █████████ ███ █████████ ████ ██████████ ████████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ███████ █████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ████
The author would agree with the first point (nationally oriented schools should give more training in statutory law), but the second point is unsupported. The author notes that regionally oriented law schools already provide some training in statutory law. But that doesn’t mean they’re deficient in teaching case law. They might teach a good deal of both.
b
Training in statutory ███ █████ ████ ███████ ███████ █████ █████████ ███ █████ ███ ███████ ███ ███ ███████████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ █████████
Strongly supported. The author states in P2 that one of the reasons to study statutory law is that legal questions can often be answered by referring to statutes, but that interpreting those statutes can be difficult. If he thinks this difficulty is a good reason to study statutory law, that strongly suggests he thinks such training would help make it easier.
c
Lawyers who are ███████ ██ █████████ ███ █████████ ████ ███████ █ ██████ █████ ██ ██████████ ██ ████████████ ███████ ██ ████ █████ ██ ████████ ████ ███████ ███ ███ ███ ███████ ██ ████ ████
This says that lawyers who study statutory law are also better at analyzing individual cases. This is unsupported. The author’s support for studying statutory law is that doing so builds other important skills (namely, interpreting statutes and synthesizing laws into a coherent whole) that students don’t get just by doing case analysis. The author never suggests that the benefits of studying statutory law ever spill over into case analysis.
d
Courses in statutory ███ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ████ █████ ████████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ █ ██████████ ██████ ██ ██ █ ██████████ ████ ██ ███ ████
Unsupported comparison. The author never compares different methods of teaching statutory law. In fact, he never brings up the option of not focusing a limited set of statutes. He simply says (in P4) that focusing on a limited set of statutes is useful training, whether you’re at a regionally oriented school or a nationally oriented one.
e
Lawyers who do ███ ██████████ ████████ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ████████ ██ █████████ ███ ██████ █ █████ ████████████ ██ ███ ████████
Unsupported. The author suggests in P3 that studying statutory law is especially important for those who specialize. This might suggest that lawyers who don’t specialize have less need for such training, but it doesn’t suggest that they have little need altogether. Perhaps, in the author’s view, all lawyers have a significant need for training in statutory law, and those who specialize just need it the most.