The Language of Law School Learning to "Think Like a Lawyer" [Paperback]

In this linguistic study of law school education, Mertz shows how law professors employ the Socratic method between teacher and student, forcing the student to shift away from moral and emotional terms in thinking about conflict, toward frameworks of legal authority instead.

Notes on Transcription
I. Introduction
1. Entering the World of U.S. Law
2. Law, Language, and the U.S. Classroom
3. Study, Design, Methodology, and Profile
II. Similarity: Legal Epistemology
4. Learning to Read Like a Lawyer: Text, Context, and Linguistic Ideology
5. Epistemology and Teaching Styles: Different Form, Same Message
6. On Becoming a Legal Person: Law Talk in the Law School Classrooms
III. Difference: Social Structure in Legal Pedagogy
7. Professionial Style in Context
8. Student Participation and Social Difference: Race, Gender, Status, and Context in Law School Classes
IV. Conclusion: Reading, Talking, and Thinking Like a Lawyer
9. Legal Language and American Law: Authority, Morality, and Linguistic Ideology
Notes
Index

Mertz has produced nothing short of a masterpiece in the linguistic anthropology of law and society, one of those rare interdisciplinary efforts that comes along every decade or so. Just as important, the depth of the analysis is matched only by the eloquence of her prose. Her clear writing, coupled with liberal use of data excerpts through out the chapters and the fact that the book is available in an affordable paperback edition, makesThe Language of Law Schoolan attractive text for a number of courses in linguistic anthropology, discourse studies, legal discourse, law and society, and legal socialization at graduate, undergraduate, and professional levels. --American Anthropologist

Elizabeth Mertzis Senior Researcher, American Bar Foundation and Professor of Law, Wisconsin Law School.