Melvin A. Eisenberg

The common law, which is made by courts, consists of rules that govern relations between individuals, such as torts (the law of private wrongs) and contracts. Legal Reasoning explains and analyzes the modes of reasoning utilized by the courts in making and applying common law rules. These modes include reasoning from binding precedents (prior cases that are binding on the deciding court); reasoning from authoritative although not binding sources, such as leading treatises; reasoning from analogy; reasoning from propositions of morality, policy, and experience; making exceptions; drawing distinctions; and overruling. The book further examines and explains the roles of logic, deduction, and good judgment in legal reasoning. With accessible prose and full descriptions of illustrative cases, this book is a valuable resource for anyone who wishes to get a hands-on grasp of legal reasoning.

The common law, which is made by courts, consists of rules that govern relations between individuals, such as torts (the law of private wrongs) and contracts. Legal Reasoning explains and analyzes the modes of reasoning utilized by the courts in making and applying common law rules. These modes include reasoning from binding precedents (prior cases that are binding on the deciding court); reasoning from authoritative although not binding sources, such as leading treatises; reasoning from analogy; reasoning from propositions of morality, policy, and experience; making exceptions; drawing distinctions; and overruling. The book further examines and explains the roles of logic, deduction, and good judgment in legal reasoning. With accessible prose and full descriptions of illustrative cases, this book is a valuable resource for anyone who wishes to get a hands-on grasp of legal reasoning.

Foundational Principles of Contract Law not only sets out the principles and rules of contract law, it places more emphasis on what the principles and rules of contract law should be, based on policy, morality, and experience. A major premise of the book is that the best way to grasp contract law is to understand it from a critical perspective as an organic, dynamic subject. When contract law is approached in this way it is much easier to grasp and learn than when it is presented simply as a static collection of principles and rules. Professor Eisenberg covers almost all areas of contract law, including the enforceability of promises, remedies for breach of contract, problems of assent, form contracts, the effect of mistake and changed circumstances, interpretation, and problems of performance. Although the emphasis of the book is on the principles and rules of contract law, it also covers important theories in contract law, such as the theory of efficient breach, the theory of overreliance, the normative theory of contracts, formalism, and theories of contract interpretation.