Contents -- Preface -- 1. Introduction: Is There Legal Reasoning? -- 2. Rules-In Law and Elsewhere -- 2.1 Of Rules in General -- 2.2 The Core and the Fringe -- 2.3 The Generality of Rules -- 2.4 The Formality of Law -- 3. The Practice and Problems of Precedent -- 3.1 Precedent in Two Directions -- 3.2 Precedent-The Basic Concept -- 3.3 A Strange Idea -- 3.4 On Identifying a Precedent -- 3.5 Of Holdings and Dicta -- 3.6 On the Force of Precedent-Overruling, Distinguishing, and Other Types of Avoidance -- 4. Authority and Authorities -- 4.1 The Idea of Authority -- 4.2 On Binding and So-Called Persuasive Authority -- 4.3 Why Real Authority Need Not Be "Binding" -- 4.4 Can There Be Prohibited Authorities? -- 4.5 How Do Authorities Become Authoritative? -- 5. The Use and Abuse of Analogies -- 5.1 On Distinguishing Precedent from Analogy -- 5.2 On the Determination of Similarity -- 5.3 The Skeptical Challenge -- 5.4 Analogy and the Speed of Legal Change -- 6. The Idea of the Common Law -- 6.1 Some History and a Comparison -- 6.2 On the Nature of the Common Law -- 6.3 How Does the Common Law Change? -- 6.4 Is the Common Law Law? -- 6.5 A Short Tour of the Realm of Equity -- 7. The Challenge of Legal Realism -- 7.1 Do Rules and Precedents Decide Cases? -- 7.2 Does Doctrine Constrain Even If It Does Not Direct? -- 7.3 An Empirical Claim -- 7.4 Realism and the Role of the Lawyer -- 7.5 Critical Legal Studies and Realism in Modern Dress -- 8. The Interpretation of Statutes -- 8.1 Statutory Interpretation in the Regulatory State -- 8.2 The Role of the Text -- 8.3 When the Text Provides No Answer -- 8.4 When the Text Provides a Bad Answer -- 8.5 The Canons of Statutory Construction -- 9. The Judicial Opinion -- 9.1 The Causes and Consequences of Judicial Opinions -- 9.2 Giving Reasons -- 9.3 Holding and Dicta Revisited.

9.4 The Declining Frequency of Opinions -- 10. Making Law with Rules and Standards -- 10.1 The Basic Distinction -- 10.2 Rules, Standards, and the Question of Discretion -- 10.3 Stability and Flexibility -- 10.4 Rules and Standards in Judicial Opinions -- 10.5 On the Relation between Breadth and Vagueness -- 11. Law and Fact -- 11.1 On the Idea of a Fact -- 11.2 Determining Facts at Trial-The Law of Evidence and Its Critics -- 11.3 Facts and the Appellate Process -- 12. The Burden of Proof and Its Cousins -- 12.1 The Burden of Proof -- 12.2 Presumptions -- 12.3 Deference and the Allocation of Decision-Making Responsibility -- Index.