Document Type

News Article

Publication Date

10-16-2014

Abstract

Legal education is often described as teaching students "how to think like a lawyer." Indeed, most lawyers will agree that law school pedagogy altered their intellectual approach to problems, arguments and analytical challenges. However, most attempts to define the old saw "think like a lawyer" prove elusive. Maria Konnikova's book, "Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes," effectively captures what it means to think like a lawyer in a way that is both meaningful and relevant to the transformations occurring in legal education and in the practice of law. The book contains some great lessons for cultivating the habits of mind that support logical and thoughtful problem solving—attributes needed for success in law school and the legal profession. Lawyers and law students would do well to learn from the literary world's most successful problem solvers, even if he is a fictional one.

Comments

Reprinted from the Recorder with express permission.

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