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Can someone who has already read GTM please help me understand the difference between "Reciprocal Forks" (pp 92-94) and "Concurrent Forks" (pp 94-96), if there is one? This is pretty much completely inconsequential, but it is still driving me crazy trying to tease apart the differences between these two. Has anyone else shared my pain who has already worked their way through this?

My understanding of a "Reciprocal Fork" is that you find yourself in a situation wherein you are confronted with a "Fork in the Law"/"Fork in the Facts," and the path you take at either fork requires you to take a specific path at the other in order for your argument to be logical. Thus, there is a reciprocal relationship between the two paths. If A --> B / not B --> not A.

However, Fischl and Paul seem to draw a distinction between this and "Concurrent Forks," which - to my understanding - means that you are confronted with a "Fork in the Facts" and a "Fork in the Law," and the path you take at one fork, necessitates the path you must take at the other. But, how is this different from a "Reciprocal Fork?" They seem to base this distinction solely on the grounds that a "Concurrent Fork" forces you to analyze a hypothetical within one legal domain or another (e.g., common law vs. statutory law) as a result of the path you decide, and thus a "Concurrent Fork" would appear to be a very specific sub-classification of a "Reciprocal Fork." Does that seem accurate?

GTM provides differing hypotheticals to explain each one, and when I diagram them out it makes sense that there is a distinction between the two, but when I try to articulate what exactly that distinction is, I fail miserably. Like I said, this is inconsequential, but agitating nevertheless. Anyone care to help?

Are you a 0L? I'm assuming so. My answer is...

Stop reading and go to the beach or something.

I know you want an answer to this question, but when I read GTM it was hard for me to keep track of the forks and I think over-relying on the metaphor the authors of that book uses will significantly reduce its value for test-taking down the road. I think there were a lot of points in that book where the authors got a little too caught up in their own cleverness to effectively communicate the fairly simple point they make about arguing both sides, and recognizing areas in the law or facts you are presented with on a test where you can go in different directions with your analysis.

But really, don't stress about this, I can't think of a great reason why someone would need to be reading GTM in June. That's not meant to be insulting or anything but really, its a short book that can easily be read during the fall semester when it will make more sense in context.

I dont know the answer to this and I did well 1L year. I read GTM and got a sense of the main points and that was it. I felt it was useful overall but don't worry so much about the details - just grasp a general understanding of the concept of forks and youre fine.

AlanShore wrote:I dont know the answer to this and I did well 1L year. I read GTM and got a sense of the main points and that was it. I felt it was useful overall but don't worry so much about the details - just grasp a general understanding of the concept of forks and youre fine.

I agree with this. As long as you understand the general idea of forks in the law and forks in the facts, then I think you are getting what you need to get out of the book. You won't ever have to know whether a fork is a "reciprocal" or "concurrent" fork.

PredatoryWasp wrote:Like I said, this is inconsequential, but agitating nevertheless. Anyone care to help?

I agree that this sort of close inspection of the text is largely uncalled for, but my question was the result of my own agitation with my inability to figure it out more than any sort of feeling that I need to know this for any more significant purpose.

Thanks for all the responses though! Yes, I am a 0L, unfortunately I already got back from the beach... now I'm just bored. I thought I might as well do something productive-ish to get my brain in gear for academic work, since I have been out of school for a few years and my job requires nothing remotely resembling critical thinking or attention to detail and I've grown intellectually lazy.

GTM makes a lot more sense after you've taken law school classes and you can better understand the examples they provide.

Also, 0Ls are not allowed to post in the Forum for Law School Students.