The Summer Academy introduces students to the principles and methods of legal reasoning and analysis. The classes and readings examine certain analytical problems that recur across all substantive areas of law and the particular toolset that lawyers use to resolve them. Students will study the relationship between legal problems and other fields of thought, such as moral and political philosophy, economics, and political theory. The subjects for discussion include the nature of, and justification for, reasoning from precedent; differences between common and civil law systems; the degree to which materials that are not distinctively legal should be considered in deciding what the law is; the role that notions such as incentives, consent, coercion, and voluntary choice should play in legal decisions and policy decisions that affect the law; the question of whether and when to impose rules or allow discretion; and the problems of interpreting statutes and other authoritative texts. Finally, the course will explore recent developments that present new challenges to the legal profession asking students to apply what they have learned to contemporary problems in law including globalization and the rise of machine learning technologies.
As the academy will provide students with an understanding of what it means to be a lawyer and how to analyse legal problems, it is ideal for students who are considering whether to pursue a degree in law.