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Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges |  | Authors: Antonin Scalia, Bryan A. Garner
Publisher: Thomson West
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Seller: TestPrepHelp
Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 21682
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 269
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0314184716
Dewey Decimal Number: 340.0711
EAN: 9780314184719
ASIN: 0314184716
Publication Date: April 28, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In their professional lives courtroom lawyers must do these two things well: speak persuasively and write persuasively. In this noteworthy book, two of the most noted legal writers of our day Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner systematically present every important idea about judicial persuasion in a fresh, entertaining way. Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges is a guide for novice and experienced litigators alike. It covers the essentials of sound legal reasoning, including how to develop the syllogism that underlies any argument. From there the authors explain the art of brief-writing, especially what to include and what to omit, so that you can induce the judge to focus closely on your arguments. Finally, they show what it takes to succeed in oral argument. The opinions of Justice Scalia are legendary for their sharp insights, biting wit, and memorable phrasing. The writings of Bryan A. Garner, editor in chief of Black s Law Dictionary®, are respected inside and outside legal circles for their practical guidance on the art of writing and advocacy. Together the Scalia-Garner team has produced a fresh, innovative approach to a timeless topic.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 45
 A valuable book for non-lawyers and lawyers February 8, 2010
Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA)
Why would non-lawyers want to read a book on persuading judges? For several reasons actually. First, many of us are involved in work that requires persuading others to adopt our views. While legal argument is substantially more formal and rule-driven than what most of us do, learning how to construct a logical argument as if it were to be delivered to the court, that Is governed by deadlines, restrictions on length, the need to adhere to established fact (or to establish those facts) and to be neither groveling nor inflammatory can be applied to selling your widgets.
Perhaps more important is the fact that most people don't understand the impact of the court's decisions on our daily lives, our pocketbooks and our freedoms.
Nine people sit on the Supreme Court. They cannot be removed except for the most grievous crimes and then only if Congress were to agree. More than one Justice has demonstrated that you can be senile and sit on the nation's highest court. Going down the food chain, the same applies to the federal appellate and trial courts. It is unlikely that one person in a hundred can even name a local federal district court judge and probably not one in a thousand could name the nine Supreme Court justices.
Yet these men and women have tremendous impact on our lives, as do the thousands of state court justices.
I am not a lawyer, but I consult to them and am not a stranger to the courtroom, writing drafts for legal briefs, doing legal research and the like. I have seen a lot of judges in action and have learned, in general, to fear them. They can - and do - cause tremendous harm through ill-considered decisions, making decisions with insufficient facts, assuming they know more than they do and myriad other reasons. They are gods in their courtrooms and if your lawyer fails to persuade them of the justness of your cause, you lose.
Just how do these people reach their decisions?
While justice is supposed to be blind (fat chance!), the justices are human and thus persuadable.
Bryan Garner is a noted writer on legal writing. He is actually quite witty as he explains the use of the English language to lawyers who have had their understanding of words driven out of them in law school.
Antonin Scalia is a hero to many for the courageousness of his decisions and dissents, his belief that the Constitution is to be strictly interpreted and his generally brilliant writing style.
In 115, frequently witty, short chapters the two authors (who occasionally openly disagree) lay down their thoughts on how judges can be persuaded.
It is not all about legal writing; e.g, advice to not chew your fingernails and dressing appropriately for court. They advise on giving your oral argument, which a lot of sales and marketing people would do well to read, especially the guidance to "never speak over a judge". In a sales situation, I am surprised at how often the sales person displays his or her contempt for me by not only not listening to me, but presuming they understand the point I was going to make before they spoke over me. I don't know about you, but a lot of salespeople have lost business with me for doing that.
Some of the points the authors make are points of contention themselves: i.e., "swear off substantive footnotes - or not".
None of the material in this book is truly new. Law students get elements of it in their first year as do some college students. A lot can be found in books on to be a better salesperson: i.e., don't chew your fingernails, etc. And a lot of it is plain commonsense.
But that doesn't mean this book is unhelpful. First, it reveals in tiny part how Scalia evaluates the briefs he reads and arguments he hears, which in itself is a fascinating peek. The authors also put things many people may have forgotten through lack of use into perspective. Finally, they remind lawyers and non-lawyers alike that you often have only one shot at winning your argument so you had best put your best foot forward.
Scalia and Garner show you how to do it. Overall, this is a fun, informative and helpful read.
Jerry
 Making Your Case: The art of Persuading Judges February 1, 2010
L. Jackson
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you are a fan of his work and just starting out in law school this book has quite a bit of knowledge and I found it pretty interesting.
Great for law students (and practicing lawyers, too) January 18, 2010
E. Klistar
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was recommended to me by my undergraduate moot court coach, and it was very helpful for both oral argument and brief-writing competitions. The book is written for practicing attorneys, and gives detailed hints and guidelines for what to do and what not to do when arguing before a judge whether in oral or written form. Some of the advice seems obvious, but other points are nuanced and not intuitive. The coauthors disagree in a couple of areas, and the debate is interesting and amusing to read. It is not long, and there is a lot of information packed into the 200 pages. I would recommend this book for anyone who is serious about wanting to improve their legal argument skills, especially those who don't have the time for a lot of extra reading.
Every Attorney should purchase this book! September 13, 2009
Raphael S. Barchichat
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges is a amazing book that I the pleasure to read.
I will recommend this book. It is a very complete book that actually gives many example to understand different strategy.
Every Attorney should purchase this book!
Raphael S. Barchichat
Concise but practice based discourse on persuasion April 16, 2009
Girish Lal Pudieduth (CA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges" is a concise but practice based discourse on persuasion and is highly recommended.
The 245 page book is a result of brilliant collaboration between Antonin Scalia, an Associate Judge of Supreme Court of United States and Bryan A. Garner, a well known legal lexicographer and Editor in chief of Black's Law Dictionary. The book is for lawyers. But I am software engineer: so what am I doing with this book? From the jacket to sub title and the back cover you will assume that this book is intended only for lawyers. Actually, the authors focus only upon lawyers and describe in detail various aspects of persuading a judge to lead or enable the judge to come to a decision favorable to their clients. All the illustrative examples and side bar are taken from the realm of legal domain. But what makes this book an extraordinary one is how this sharp focus on a particular domain becomes relevant to any situation where persuasion is needed to arrive at an actionable decision. The authors focus more upon analytical and behavioral aspects of art of persuasion rather than emotional techniques many propound.
The book has 4 main parts: General principles of argumentation, Legal reasoning, Briefing, and Oral arguments. First two parts are applicable to anyone and can be read without much legal background. Briefing and Oral arguments are the longest sections in the book and some part of them may need some amount of legal literacy to understand well. I do not know why "Source for Inset quotations" section was needed, but the Recommended Sources are well documented and is very helpful to continue learn more about the subject. The book looks like suddenly stopped without a summary chapter or a conclusion chapter. May be, authors were following their own advise on not to repeat themselves.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 45
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