LG's skill is useful for lawyer? Forum

[Alexander Wang]

I'm just wondering the skills developed in LG, like numerical distribution, linear sequence, is any useful in the career of lawyer. Where can they be applied?
I agree skills in LR and RC might be very useful for the future practice of lawyer. But I really can't immagine why lawyer need put P in slot X if M is exactly two slots before N...
Tired to figure out those stupid LG Q's...

[PurplePirate]

Analytical reasoning skills are irrelevant?

[Kurst]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 6&t=147536

[moneybagsphd]

...

[moneybagsphd]

I think that LG tests your ability to work methodically more than your ability to think critically. If you jump into the game un(der)prepared, you'll fail. It is procedural and you have to be precise:
1) Diagram the rules (double-checking to make sure they aren't mistranscribed and you haven't missed any).
2) Make deductions. These are usually pretty simple, but you have to make sure that you've made all the deductions before starting a game. This process is analytical: you see how the rules fit together.
If your diagram is wrong or you make a false deduction, game over.

[AreJay711]

It's called estates. Enjoy.

[EarlCat]

It's called estates. Enjoy.

^this.

...or income taxation or civil procedure or appellate procedure or evidence. If you don't think recognizing the implications of a list of rules is important for being a lawyer you're crazy.

[tomwatts]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 6&t=147536

Good times, man. Good times.

I taught the LSAT for five years and then this year started law school (and right now am procrastinating on studying for my last exam, Torts, which is on Monday — sigh), so I have a somewhat unusual perspective on this.

The thing that's struck me continuously throughout my first semester is the ongoing tension between "The LSAT is totally relevant to everything that you do in law school" and "The LSAT is completely irrelevant to absolutely anything you do in law school." Both statements are largely true.

As the posters above have noted, many of your law school classes will involve taking large sets of rules, applying them to facts, and figuring out what you can, must, can't, or might not do. This is precisely what you do in logic games, and it's precisely the justification that LSAC regularly gives (starting around 9:40 in the video) for this portion of the exam. I suppose that's true, as far as it goes; I was thinking of this as I was looking over the rules of joinder in Civil Procedure (a defendant MUST counterclaim any claim that arises out of the same transaction or occurrence and CAN counterclaim anything else against the same defendant, but can only implead third-parties who may be liable to the defendant for all or part of the claim against it, but can also assert additional claims against the impleaded defendant...).

However, if this is so, this is a really cynical view of the law. Usually there's some sort of logic or policy justification behind the rules as they exist, and they interweave together with other topics you study. (Certain kinds of counterclaims are compulsory for efficiency reasons, and they have impacts on preclusion, but other kinds of counterclaims are permissive for litigant autonomy reasons, and....) In a logic game, however, J comes before K because it does, not because to do otherwise would hinder efficiency or fairness or any of dozens of other values that we might worry about. It's not as though there's a policy justification for each of the rules; they just exist, regardless of how nonsensical they are, and you have to follow them.

So yeah, the general skills involved in applying rules to facts are part of the life of a lawyer. But you're probably not going to have to arrange dresses on hangers according to the following conditions in 8.75 minutes for a client or a judge at any point in your legal career. What I make of that, at least, is that if you don't like logic games, take comfort in its specific irrelevance, but remind yourself of the general relevance of the mental training in an at least tangentially related area to what you actually wanted to do, and the specific need to do it (uh, because you gotta take the LSAT to get into law school).

[AreJay711]

Tell me RAP isn't like a logic game. I actually don't think FRCP are really the same and haven't taken taxation but some of the shit in property could be a fine LSAT question. The main difference is the time aspect that you have a chance to really figure out all the inferences beforehand but they can still be tricky in the same way.