An indispensable introduction to legal reasoning, updated for today’s political and legal environment.

Since it was first published nearly five decades ago, Reason in Law has become the starting point for understanding legal reasoning, a critical component of the rule of law. The editors show how judges can integrate all the elements of a case to persuasively explain their rulings—and, even more importantly, why they sometimes fail to do so. Drawing on cases old and new, Reason in Law enables readers to become sophisticated “judges of judging.”

Now in its tenth edition, Reason in Law includes a new chapter on the increasingly contentious and politically consequential field of administrative law and addresses recent developments in the American legal landscape, including growing conservatism in the federal judiciary and the flood of lawsuits brought against the second Trump administration. It also analyzes new cases on the First Amendment rights of high schoolers, transgender civil rights, the responsibilities universities have for student safety, Donald Trump’s sweeping claims of executive power, and historic Supreme Court decisions expanding the rights of gun owners and allowing states to criminalize abortion. As always, Reason in Law connects legal theory with empirical research on the American judicial system, showing how trustworthy legal reasoning helps preserve social peace and the rule of law.

Lief H. Carter (1940–2023), the founding author of Reason in Law, was professor emeritus of political science at Colorado College. Thomas F. Burke is the Ralph Emerson and Alice Freeman Palmer Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College. His previous books include How Policy Shapes Politics. Jessica Silbey is the Honorable Frank H. Kenison Distinguished Scholar in Law at the Boston University School of Law and a Guggenheim Fellow. Her previous books include Against Progress: Intellectual Property and Fundamental Rights in the Internet Age.

Foreword: Defending Reason in Law by Kim Lane Scheppele
Prefaces to the Tenth Edition

1. What Legal Reasoning Is and Why It Matters
2. Change and Stability in Legal Reasoning
3. Common Law
4. Statutory Interpretation
5. Interpreting the US Constitution
6. Administrative Law
7. Law and Politics

Appendix A: Introduction to Legal Procedure and Terminology
Index of Cases
Index