The basic purpose of this course is to help students understand 
our legal system and the means and merits of legal argument. 
Students should be able to appreciate the distinction between 
rhetorical and popular argumentation on disputed issues, as 
might appear in editorial writing, and legal argumentation. The 
course culminates with a few weeks’ discussion concerning 
pending and recently decided Supreme Court cases so that 
students may appreciate the legal disputes of our time from the 
legal perspective.

•	Identify the institutional components of legal systems 
and their distinctive characters
•	Construct and critique legal arguments, such abilities 
including the identification of issues, analysis of competing 
but possible legal standards, and application of those standards 
to specific facts
•	Deploy the prevailing tools of legal and policy analysis 
to argue for a legal position
•	Argue for interpretations of legal materials using the 
major interpretive methodologies
•	Argue for legal results based on institutional 
competencies and arrangements
•	Characterize in legal terms complex cases before the 
United States Supreme Court
•	Recognize the legal implications of pending cases for 
future but substantively unrelated cases

I. Introduction to Legal Argument and the Legal System

1. Legal system overview and making sense of the fields of law
2. Legal argument, rules, and standards

II. Legal Reasons

1. What’s good?
2. Law and economics
3. Collective action and information problems
4. Behavior and irrationality
5. Fairness and distributive justice
6. Morality

III. Legal Institutions

1. Courts
2. Legislatures and public choice
3. The Administrative state

IV. Interpretation

1. Textualism, intentionalism, purposivism, originalism, and 
other interpretive methods
2. Deference and scrutiny

V. Application to the Current Supreme Court Docket